It’s been an eventful week for MTV-related news, which, when you consider the channel’s declining relevance over the years, is news in itself. First came the widespread rumors that MTV had shuttered for good. This is not true. Several of MTV’s music-only channels in the UK and Australia were set to shut down by the new year, and they did. Somehow the internet misconstrued this into the belief that MTV is gone. Because that’s what the internet does.
But the internet also does cool things, which brings us to some happy MTV-related news. Earlier this week word spread that an industrious coder who goes by the name of Flexasuraus Rex had created a web app that streams a nonstop flow of classic MTV programming. This news is actually true: MTV Rewind offers (as of this writing) more than 35,000 videos, coming at you with invigorating randomness (although you can also zero in on particular decades and genre shows, like “Yo! MTV Raps” and “Headbangers Ball” — because in this niched-out, on-demand age, nothing is really random anymore).
I spent a couple of hours with the app this week — I never said my job isn’t fun — and found it to be a delight. Nostalgia is certainly a factor here; I’m an ’80s kid, which means I grew up on music videos (although I was first hooked on “Night Tracks,” over on TBS). MTV Rewind is a welcome reminder of the days when MTV was known for actually showing videos. Some of the classics I remember are just funny now. Why are The Scorpions trapped in a giant cage in the “Rock You Like a Hurricane” video, and how did those jungle cats sneak in? Why does it suddenly start raining in the middle of Jody Whatley’s “Don’t You Want Me” video? OK, that one is actually easy. Rain is sexy and mysterious. Anyone who has watched enough ’40s film noir can tell you that. My brief Rewind swing included even more precipitation with Disturbed’s arty, black-and-white “If I Ever Lose Faith in You” video. When it rains, it pours.
But the best part of my Rewind jaunt was the largely lost thrill of not knowing what’s coming next, especially when you hit the “shuffle all” button. Today’s mass culture suffers from a lack of surprise and spontaneity, which tend to fall by the wayside when you can get exactly what you want, exactly when you want it. MTV Rewind even includes vintage commercials, including the Duracell “Dancing Grandma” spot and the Sunny Delight ad that made many wonder about the provenance of that “purple stuff” that nobody wants to drink.
Music videos have been around long enough that they now have their own pantheon of directors, including Spike Jonze, Hype Williams, Michel Gondry, and Anton Corbjin. It’s funny to think that we can now long for a phenomenon once widely derided for its cheap surface thrills. After all these years, it seems we still want our MTV.
Chris Vognar can be reached at chris.vognar@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram at @chrisvognar and on Bluesky at chrisvognar.bsky.social.