Do You Want Your MTV?

mtv.com

On August 1st, 1981, American pop culture was forever changed. At 12:01 am people with cable tuned in to a new channel, saw a rocket launch and then heard the words "Ladies and Gentlemen, Rock and Roll", this was followed by the now iconic Buggles music video "Video Killed The Radio Star". Music Television, later branded MTV, was born.

The early days of MTV are now iconic. Music videos, cool hip Video Jockeys (VJs) guiding us through the day and night, and news just about the music of the day. As the years gave way to decades MTV changed. First a game show called "Remote Control" broke up the non-stop music videos, then more shows followed. The rise of reality television started on MTV with "The Real World" and the network executives at MTV pivoted hard towards unscripted shows and the music videos lost their time on the station. As cable expanded to more channels, MTV expanded to bring music videos back on other stations, but again those stations would bring on more unscripted television and the videos had to be sacrificed. On December 31st, 2025, MTV shut down all their music channels and retained just the original MTV for the showing of reality television. "The Real World" killed the Video Star.

Thanks to a coder that goes by the name FlexasaurusRex, you can have your classic MTV. MTV Rewind provides an easy-to-use archive of music videos. The site connects to YouTube playlists, giving users access to more than 40,000 music videos from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and today. Ads do appear periodically, yet they are ads from the time of MTV's music video dominance such as ads for Ginsu Knives, the Flowbee haircut system, and the California Raisins to name a few. There is an option to donate to the site to keep it truly ad free.

MTV Rewind will appease to all music tastes The site is broken up into several collections, including “MTV 1st Day,” Decades starting in the 70's and going all the way to modern day. It even has genre playlists that harken back to the channel’s signature shows, 120 Minutes, Yo! MTV Raps, and Headbangers Balls. There's a channel of MTV's live broadcast of Live Aid in 1985, a VH1 Pop Up Video Channel, and one that hosts all the "MTV Unplugged" performances. If you can't decide, there’s a shuffle feature that will truly make it Your MTV.

While many of us who grew up with MTV lament it's downfall, there are still people like FlexasaurusRex out there that answer the call of "I Want My MTV". If you need to answer that call, and you have some Aqua Net on hand, then give MTV Rewind a look. At the very least it will help you answer the trivia question "What was the second video ever shown on MTV?".

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing.