I Want My MTV

[JourneyHard]

A new biography on A&E was about MTV entitled "I Want My MTV." It didn't include one mention of Journey. They were huge in the early days of MTV. We all know MTV showed the Houston Journey Escape concert. Journey did videos for at least half their songs on Frontiers. Yet no mention. I wonder if Steve Perry is up to his old tricks again. Perry probably told them NOT to use any Journey videos. Perry probably thought the concept videos were goofy. But that was the whole point of MTV. Get attention for your band with goofy videos! The documentary had to say REO Speedwagon were the big thing on MTV. I love REO Speedwagon, but they were NOT bigger than Journey on MTV. Not even close.

[Monker]

Well, Journey should have been mentioned for the Houston concert since I believe that was the first live concert broadcast MTV did. But, other than that, I don't think Journey was that big of a deal on MTV. Their videos were not significantly popular, that I recall....except to be laughed at for being so bad. But, I also agree that REO wasn't a big deal.

If you really think about about it, these were live bands...and AOR bands. MTV was more for pop singles and sorta signaled the end of that era...where a band made it big by releasing good albums and touring. By the 1983, you had to have a 'hit' video on MTV. Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Heart...some bands like those could make the transition. Journey never really had to. The Houston concert provided live videos for Escape. Frontiers following Escape did not need good videos to be a success because of how popular Escape was. ROR went back to the live videos. So, I really don't think Journey really added anything to the MTV phenomenon.

Bands/artists that I would expect to be on any MTV documentary:
The Buggles (only because they were the first video played)
Michael Jackson
Madonna
Duran Duran
Dire Straits (Money For Nothing)
Quiet Riot (Maybe - Metal Health basically started their genre)
Motley Crue (for popularizing their genre)
"Headbangers Ball" - because the entire showcase of bands.
U2
Van Halan and Sammy Hagar and Van Hagar - because of how all of that played out at that time.
Huey Lewis (because being on MTV made them, and when they tried to take the music seriously, they failed)
As I said, Def Leppard and Bon Jovi
Heart (Maybe)
Pat Benetar (Maybe)
Nirvana (killing "glam')
Weird Al (for his paradies)
Grateful Dead (because "Touch of Gray" was a manufactured hit)
Aerosmith (because of their revival due to "Walk This Way" being covered by Run DMC, and their video together)
Those are the bands that I remember either having a big impact on MTV....or were bands that released highly anticipated videos that got a huge amount of attention...deserved or not.

[Onestepper]

For the most part, Journey was a running joke on MTV. Had they not been so popular, that Separate Ways video could have killed the career of any other band. But they were fortunate enough to not need all of what MTV brought. Good thing too, cause those videos were atrocious.

[JourneyHard]

This is all true, but in the early days of MTV, they didn't have a lot of videos to show. But as we know, Journey filmed everything and had videos of Wheel in the Sky in concert and other material from Infiinty, Evolution and Departure to show on MTV as well as the Escape concert material. Maybe they weren't a big deal, but they should have been mentioned for a hot minute. But they probably wanted today's Steve Perry to comment on camera and he didn't want to do it; so they just dropped Journey completely.

[bellairepark73]

A new biography on A&E was about MTV entitled "I Want My MTV." It didn't include one mention of Journey. They were huge in the early days of MTV. We all know MTV showed the Houston Journey Escape concert. Journey did videos for at least half their songs on Frontiers. Yet no mention. I wonder if Steve Perry is up to his old tricks again. Perry probably told them NOT to use any Journey videos. Perry probably thought the concept videos were goofy. But that was the whole point of MTV. Get attention for your band with goofy videos! The documentary had to say REO Speedwagon were the big thing on MTV. I love REO Speedwagon, but they were NOT bigger than Journey on MTV. Not even close.

Me thinks you ladies and gents of this melodicrock give SP WAY WAY too much power and credit.

[JourneyHard]

Me thinks you ladies and gents of this melodicrock give SP WAY WAY too much power and credit.

Tell me why Journey wasn't even mentioned for five seconds in this documentary. All they had to do was say Journey Escape Tour in Houston was the first concert shown on MTV and then play a short clip of Don't Stop Believin' in concert and it would have been fine. But for some reason, they didn't. Mr. Perry must have put the kibosh on it. Otherwise, I don't know why MTV wouldn't have piled on the DSB-mania that is going on the last 12 years!

[Monker]

Me thinks you ladies and gents of this melodicrock give SP WAY WAY too much power and credit.

Tell me why Journey wasn't even mentioned for five seconds in this documentary. All they had to do was say Journey Escape Tour in Houston was the first concert shown on MTV and then play a short clip of Don't Stop Believin' in concert and it would have been fine. But for some reason, they didn't. Mr. Perry must have put the kibosh on it. Otherwise, I don't know why MTV wouldn't have piled on the DSB-mania that is going on the last 12 years!

Well, there is the fact that Journey was outspokenly against MTV back in the day. The original plan was to not even release videos for ROR. They eventually cracked and did the live ones.

[brandonx76]

I noticed "Separate Ways" video clip during a montage...

I remember After the Fall and Faithfully on heavy rotation back in the day. And yeah the Escape Concert seemed like a big deal...to me at least...