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MTV launched on Aug. 1, 1981. “Video Killed the Radio Star” from The Buggles played first, changing how music reached people. The channel turned music videos from throwaway promotions into creative mini-movies that influenced television, fashion, and what was popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
The channel announced at the end of 2025 that it was shutting down all of its 24-hour music-only channels worldwide, marking the end of an era that began when artists realized simple lip-sync videos wouldn’t cut it anymore.
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” represented the full evolution of the music video as an art. Director John Landis created the 13-and-a-half-minute horror-themed production for $500,000 at a time when most videos cost around $50,000. “For a while there, you couldn’t turn on the television without seeing ‘Thriller,’” Landis told Today.com.
Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” won nine Video Music Awards using stop-motion animation, a painstaking process that required Gabriel to lie under a glass sheet for 16 hours while animators moved objects around his face frame-by-frame.
ZZ Top reinvented itself for the MTV generation with three interconnected videos. “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” and “Legs” featured a 1933 Ford Coupe called the Eliminator. The clips helped the Eliminator album sell more than all the band’s previous releases combined.
Run-DMC and Aerosmith collaborated on “Walk This Way” in 1986, breaking down barriers between rock and hip-hop in ways that still matter today. Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” won a Moonman trophy at the Video Music Awards and featured wrestler “Captain” Lou Albano as her father.
By the 2000s, MTV began having more success with reality programming such as The Osbournes, 16 and Pregnant, and Jersey Shore. Hit police drama Miami Vice was nicknamed “MTV cops” for imitating the quick-cut, glossy look of music videos during the channel’s peak years.
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Laura Adkins
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