It's 4:30 a.m. Colorful flashes of artificial light dance on the ceiling and bounce off the walls, momentarily illuminating the dark room. I may be awake, but I drift in and out of various reveries as the television flickers, like lying next to a beautiful brunette while listening to her heart beat against the rhythm of The Velvet Underground'sSunday Morning or turning on the television at 3:00 p.m. and being able to watch music on MTV.
Besides paranoia, a shortened attention span and an overall deterioration of my health, insomnia has provided me with the opportunity to catch music videos during the hour of the midnight rambler. This is the only time MTV lives true to its name.
Right now The Killers' front man Brandon Flowers is singing ' or rather pleading ' Don't you want to come with me/ Don't you want to feel my bones/ On your bones/ It's only natural behind a gaudy rhythm and horn section coupled with the eccentricities of Tim Burton's directorial style. Sure, feeling the supple, milky flesh of one's lover may be natural, but nothing about this network is.
This sort of scene has become about as foreign as witnessing a three-legged dog getting plowed by a Scandinavian witch doctor wearing a tight, turquoise turtleneck while doing 25 mph on a Rascal scooter.
I don't want my MTV! This mammoth of a network has warped itself into the very oxymoron of American culture. Reality television? Ha! What do spoiled, pretentious 16-year-old girls throwing disgustingly inflated birthday parties while hijacking their daddies' bank accounts have anything to do with reality?
And how do these shows relate to music? If you have the audacity to tell me the soundtracks used during the show launch new bands onto the national scene, then you should be checked for brain bubbles. Prime-time soap operas like Grey's Anatomy have the market covered. Music television should be launching bands through the perpetual play of music.
The dawning of MTV in the '80s provided an innovative medium for the blooming art of music videos while simultaneously providing music news and events. It reaped massive success and praise. However, legendary rock critic Lester Bangs predicted the networks malignancy from its inception.
If music can truly save the world, MTV won't facilitate it.
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Collin Minnis
