Do you remember waking up early Saturday morning and flipping to VH1 or MTV to maybe catch a glimpse of your favorite music video? Remember coming home from school and catching the “Top 20 Countdown”?
This guy here does.
They were simpler times back then. Times when music videos weren’t ready to stream at a moment’s notice.
I remember watching entire countdowns from number 20 to number one just hoping that my favorite song would be in there somewhere. I remember 106&Park everyday after school. These countdown shows were also a way to discover new music and to find out what was really hot in the music world. Sometimes they would premiere a brand new artist and it would be exciting.
I’ve never gotten over that. I still love music videos. I think most people do. But I pay special attention to them, the direction, use of animations and colors in the video. Sometimes I like to recreate that “countdown feel” by making a playlist on YouTube or letting the algorithm autoplay songs.
Still it’s not the same as watching a countdown anxiously for your favorite videos in between commercial breaks and finding new songs to go and hurriedly download onto your MP3 player.
I guess I’m just feeling nostalgic but I think there was something so pure about how we discovered music in those days. Not to say I’m not thankful for all the advances we’ve made thus far.
Do you have any special memories about watching countdowns on TV? Let us all know, we’d love to hear from you.
Artistic Apathy 