Aug. 1, 1981, might not immediately come to mind as an important date in history, but to a generation of music fans, it was monumental. On that day, 35 years ago, a cable TV channel that played music videos around the clock made its debut.

Source: 35 years ago, MTV debuted and video killed the radio star

I grew up on MTV back when it played music. Much of my youth was spent in front of the TV watching bands like Duran Duran, Van Halen, Asia, Queen, Toto, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Aha, Hall and Oates, Scorpions, Culture Club, Europe and more.

It was where Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Prince, David Bowie and other artists made a name for themselves to a brand new audience. Without MTV, my teen years would have been very different.

The music video was something imaginative, something profound. The notion of bringing a piece of music to life in a visual way wasn’t really new but it was perfected because of MTV and other services.

Nowadays they do reality TV and other non-music related programming. I hear that is changing soon but we shall wait and see. As we said back in the day “I Want My MTV”