Friday, May 27, 2011

The Evolution of MTV-Breaking the Color Barrier-Weekly Analysis 2

When MTV started out, it played mostly just rock songs and videos. There was rarely any black artists that had their songs played on MTV. Tina Turner, Eddy Grant, and Donna Summer were the only black artists featured on MTV. "Super Freak" by Rick James was one video that was not played on the channel because it didn't go along with MTV's genre. James wasn't happy about this and wanted the station to play more videos by black artists. Even Michael Jackson wasn't being played on the channel before 1983. In 1983, Walter Yetnikoff, CBS Records' president at the time, threatened to not allow MTV to play any music videos on the record label. "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson was then played, and this video was said to "break the color barrier" on MTV. After airing this video in regular rotation, MTV's popularity rose. More and more black artists were having their videos played on MTV, and the channel switched from playing just rock to also playing pop and R&B.
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousMay 29, 2011 at 5:47 PM

    This is a good story Katie. I didn't know that they didn't have very many black artist on MTV. Good for people like Walter Yetnikoff, CBS Records' president, to step forward because if he didn't it would probably be like it was. Icons like Michael Jackson should want to be played on all music stations.

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