In the music video age that blossomed in the 80s, some of the canonical pop acts that continue to loom over the 00s landscape might have suffered a more grim fate if not for MTV.  The music video was the new ‘45.  Suddenly, a band could thrive in the mainstream consciousness for extended periods of time off the strength of their singles, made all the more memorable with an ace music video.  The bands who most openly embraced the new model, like Duran Duran, helped redefine pop as the enchanted marriage of the right visual with the right sound.

Somewhere between then and now, music video culture died.  When I was a kid, MTV had already lost a step in the sense that it no longer showed alternative music videos, but those were casualties of the 90s more than anything.  In the 80s, “art” music was pop music:  The Police, Prince, Peter Gabriel, New Order, and so on.  Before the siege of boy bands and Europop trash that occupied the latter half of the decade, the 90s was consigned to grunge culture, and if the music was compelling, the visuals were calculatedly not.  Grunge’s anti-fashion flannel and unwashed hair became all the rage, and if you go back and watch the videos from that era it’s unfathomable why that was the case.

In the summer time, when I had very little to do, I would sit in front of the fan and idly watch music videos.  I remember very few of them, and unfortunately those that I do remember seem to involve Sugar Ray, Matchbox Twenty, and J-Lo.  Even if pop music videos were terrible in the 90s, though, they kept me abreast of the contemporary situation (at least I thought they did).  As a potential consumer, one would imagine that it was in the best interest of major labels to keep idle kids like myself abreast of the situation.  Carson Daly and “TRL” were the new Casey Kasem and the “Top 40,” massive revenue-driving jockeys who made even the worst music sound relevant.

People also seem to forget that the spite-inflected Reality TV plague that has gripped the country had much to do with the success of MTV’s “The Real World,” a terrible, ground-breaking show about young do-nothings living in the lap of luxury in different cities for a few months and whining incessantly about it.  As the 90s crept to a close, “The Real World” and “TRL” were the most recognizable programs on the network.  Come mid-00s, the scales tipped in favor of the former, introducing a whole slew of nauseous Reality TV programming about bad people, “My Super Sweet Sixteen” being the most eye-opening of these.  For a hot minute there, MTV was infamous for having nothing to do with music.  At least you could catch Norah Jones music videos at three in the morning on VH1 . . . .

Mysteriously, that’s changed all of a sudden.  Now there is this MTV “FN,” a rash of morning programming devoted entirely to music, whether it be interviews, music videos, live performances, or updates from that girl who was on “America’s Next Top Model.”  What’s more, “indie” acts like Vampire Weekend and the Bravery share equal time with the likes of Akon and Rihanna.  Video bloggers appear at the bottom of the screen and describe why they love or hate the video you’re watching, and sometimes it’s pretty funny.

But where is it all coming from?  Why get back to music videos now?  The music industry is no doubt desperate to expand its consumer base, and while a video resurrection can’t hurt, the manner in which pop culture is consumed has changed so significantly in the last five years it’s hard to predict the degree to which the Ting Ting’s video for “Shut Up and Let Me Go” will help them and not Apple.

Over-stimulation has a way of blunting the edges, and with so many already accustomed to catching their favorite videos on YouTube, initially left out in the cold by MTV, it remains to be seen what kind of an impact new visual culture will have on defining the zeitgeist.  More stimuli might be the last thing we need.