Source: The Baltimore Sun
Video Music Award contenders reflect diversity
J.D. Considine, The Baltimore Sun Thursday, September 9, 1999
There's no common musical thread between the Backstreet Boys' clean-scrubbed,
heavily choreographed
teen pop and Korn's crunchy, attitudinal hard rock. Nor does Lauryn
Hill's sophisticated, socially aware
R&B bear much resemblance to Will Smith's brash-and-catchy hip-hop
or to the slick, razzle-dazzle
sound of Ricky Martin's hits.
Yet all five are contenders for best video of the year at MTV's Video
Music Awards show at 8 p.m.
Thursday. That MTV's ballot for the best in music video would draw
from such a wide range of music
says much about the channel's strengths.
At a time when radio is clinging desperately to musical formats that
seem to grow narrower with each
passing week, MTV is mixing it up with little regard for stylistic
boundaries. The music channel's play list
has room for the soulful pop of Mariah Carey's ``Heartbreaker,'' the
boogie-guitar- driven rap of Kid
Rock's ``Cowboy,'' the Latin pop of Enrique Iglesias' ``Bailmos'' and
the funky alt-rock of the Red Hot
Chili Peppers' ``Scar Tissue'' -- and that's just in the Top 10.
It doesn't matter if an act is as famous as Santana or as unknown as
Bif Naked -- if MTV's programmers
think their audience might be interested, the band gets played. And
the amazing thing is that it works, a
point driven home daily by the jumble of pop styles presented on ``Total
Request Live,'' a show in which
MTV's viewers decide what videos get shown.
``I tell you, some people shake their heads and go, `Man, I don't get
this,' '' says Tom Calderone,
MTV's senior vice president for music and talent programming. Indeed,
there are older viewers and
music-business types who are baffled by the way a show like ``Total
Request Live'' can leap from nasty
Limp Bizkit to the sweet teen pop of Christina Aguilera without missing
a beat.
But the kids at home understand.
``I think, for the state of music right now, (the show) has exposed
so many genres of music,'' says
Calderone. As a result, he adds, viewers ``don't feel that everything
is put into nice little tightly wrapped
boxes. And that is such a plus for us now, that on `Total Request Live'
you can have Kid Rock, the
Backstreet Boys, Korn and Jay-Z all on the same show. And it's all
being requested by people who love
music.
``I'm just so excited by the musical climate for the channel right now.
And it really isn't represented in
any other media, other than here, and that gives us a certain advantage.''
Especially in the ratings. Right now, MTV is reaching more viewers than
at any time in its 18-year history.
For the last two quarters, the channel has been No. 1 on cable with
viewers between the ages of 12 and
34, and is holding that lead through the third quarter -- a demographic
advantage that puts MTV well
ahead of such cable outlets as USA, TNT and CNN.
The depth of that audience's enthusiasm can be seen on a daily basis
in Manhattan's Times Square, where
dozens -- sometimes hundreds -- of young people congregate outside
MTV's offices in hopes of being
caught on camera during MTV's broadcast of ``Total Request Live.''
Getting that kind of on-the-streets
craziness was the whole idea, says MTV President Judy McGrath. ``We
pretty much decided to make
`TRL' as lively and live as we could,'' she says. ``Go after the audience
who really loves the current
music and will call (to make requests).''
Changing the look and feel of ``Total Request Live'' was part of a channel-wide
makeover aimed at
sharpening and enlivening MTV's programming. ``We really tried to change
the channel up, play to the
audience that was available . . . and really sell the music,'' says
McGrath. In essence, MTV wanted to put
the focus on its two greatest assets: Music, and music fans.
But rather than program the channel based on assumptions about what
``the kids'' wanted, MTV went to
its audience directly, encouraging them to call ``Total Request Live,''
featuring them heavily in shows like
dance-oriented ``Global Groove'' or the an nual ``Spring Break'' specials,
and doing audience-level
programming like ``Fanatic,'' in which fans get to interview the stars.
For MTV, risk is good -- especially when celebrities are involved. That's
why shows like the Video Music
Awards are ratings bonanzas for the channel.
``For the VMAs, there's got to be a sense of danger,'' says Calderone.
``There's got to be a sense of
`What are they going to do?' We challenge ourselves internally to make
sure we come up with those
moments, so people talk about the show not only the next day, but for
weeks on end.''