A Quick Remark on TRL

What? TRL? Pennypacker, has your noodle been boiled?

All the media reflections on the (probably temporary) demise of MTV's Total Request Live only address the program as the last vestige of MTV's actual music programming and as the cauldron of corporate modern pop/rock/hip hop with the accompanying teenage shrieks (and Mariah Carey stripdown). What all the reports neglect is how TRL originally got started. Way back in the year 1997, MTV attempted a nightly bloc of music oriented programming (this was also back when the network was still aimed at older twentysomethings and more music-minded youth) that included a half hour video countdown show hosted by a then quiet, self-effacing young man named Carson Daly. As the tween-driven world of Britney Spears and the Backsynch (?) Kids took shape, and MTV's more mature programming went out the window, only then did that countdown show get turned into an afternoon shriek fest.

The point is, there was a time when MTV was livable. The Real World wasn't half bad. The music was mature. There was music, period. I haven't been able to get past watching more than five minutes of MTV in this entire decade. It's dead.