No, no, I’m not advocating drug use. For those that didn’t get the reference in the title, it is the name of an old, rather obscure Beck song. I believe off the single (import?) of Loser from back circa 1993 or so. Anyway, onto the point of the story before I digress…
On 7/2/05 was the Live 8 concerts from around the world, Philadelphia, London, and Paris just to name a few. MTV and VH-1 were covering the events as they unfolded in all of the cities.
I’ll just get straight to the point. MTV?…you suck!. My girlfriend and I are sitting in a Courtyard Marriot in Saratoga Springs, NY enjoying the day as we wait for our DMB concert to start at 7pm later that evening. So, we decided to watch the Live 8 coverage on MTV, especially since DMB was playing there, and then scurrying back up to upstate NY for their evening show.
This is how a typical hour’s segment of Live 8 coverage happened on MTV. Talking, talking, blah blah, performers in the background, commercial, talking, interviewing the crowd, 1 full song shown, “lets see whats going on in London, Jim” (cut to London), commercial, talking, interviewing the crowd, and so on.
In an hour’s time, if we saw 5 minutes of music, it would have been a lot. Instead, MTV just simply showing the concerts uninterrupted by senseless banter and commentary. I kept my mouth shut after the first 45 minutes, but when I realized this was more about MTV advertising than showing the music, I was pretty damn disgusted. What makes MTV think that me, sitting in my living room, that I care about what 3 drunk idiots from Ocean City, NJ think about the Live 8 concerts. I don’t care, SHOW ME PINK FLOYD.
Instead, and I never thought I’d say this, AOL – yes, AOL – had an Internet broadcast of the concerts, and they still have it online in archives for people to view.
Thanks MTV, for once again, really dropping the ball on an event. You people could fuck up a wet dream.