MTV was such an amazing concept. I do mean that in the past tense and you'll understand why.

In the beginning, MTV was meant to be music television. Its purpose was to play music videos 24 hours day, 7 days a week. Nothing but music. Thanks to MTV, the bands who got airplay were in the genres of hard rock, heavy metal and new wave, which despite how interesting they are as genres, are relatively overlooked in the mainstream. By airing videos by these bands, MTV allowed these bands to break barriers.

Among the clientele who had the honor of being on MTV included: David Bowie, Billy Squier, Prince, Ultravox, The Police, Robert Palmer, The Firm, The Power Station, Blotto, and Rockpile to name just a few. Thanks to a network like MTV, some are these are household names, but a few have faded into obscurity as one hit wonders. Despite this, they had exposure and that does make a difference in the long run. You never know how people can find out about certain artists.

Then, MTV changed. For a little while about 2016 or so, MTV was still playing music videos and they came on really early in the morning. There was a bit of an imbalance in who they premiered because the majority was rap and hip hop videos and only about 2 or 3 rock videos. Even the scheduling of the videos was strange because it would be 7 rap videos and then maybe a pop video and a rock video. There's nothing wrong with playing rap music to premiere videos, but the videos should be mixed in an even balance so you can see a little bit of everything.

It was only luck that I saw videos by The 1975, The Struts, Beck, Panic! At The Disco, and Best Coast. This is very nice, but they need to mix it up more. These are the only rock videos I saw in a number of different days watching. There should be some popular stuff and some under the radar stuff too. That way, no one is left out of the loop. No one has to feel that their genre is overlooked, and it would allow people to be more open minded with music.

The kids today gravitate towards the pop and rap music because it is all they show, even on Spotify. If you want to find cool bands, you have to dig deeper than the front page of Spotify. They show all the releases for the day, but so many releases are completely overlooked from bands that aren't as mainstream. It happened just the other week with a band called "Massive", who I got into after hearing their album when it came with an issue of Classic Rock magazine. I only found out it was released because of my "Release Radar" which actually contains a lot of stuff that doesn't come up on the New Releases page on Spotify.

Anyway, back to MTV, the acronym literally stands for music television and they don't play any music now. It's all older sitcoms and reality shows. This is a big problem because MTV isn't a sitcom TV network. It's a music TV network. The point of their existence is to play music and that cannot even be done anymore.

The problem with MTV, maybe more than Spotify is that there isn't enough variety in the videos and music we see. Off the top of my head, I can name a number of bands who were never shown on MTV and probably better than what was even being shown in the first place. I know I may sound elitist saying that but a majority of what's been coming out isn't anything spectacular like I've said a million times before, the best music is found by digging deep.

So, if I can give any advice to all people, younger, older, whatever...dig deeper than what you see. Hidden gems are everywhere, so don't be afraid to take the quest to find them.