9 ms·

Strangely enough, Australian artists were uniquely well-prepared for the emergence of MTV. There was a national Saturday night pop music show called Countdown

Strangely enough, Australian artists were uniquely well-prepared for the emergence of MTV. There was a national Saturday night pop music show called Countdown [1], that ran from 1974, featuring live performances and music videos, so Australian bands had nearly a decade head start to develop the art of music video. This was a major factor in the USA success of INXS, Men at Work, AC/DC and Olivia Newton-John, as they'd started out in the late 70s, and when MTV started, they already had great music videos in the can and were well placed to make more. When most videos were just of the group on a studio stage performing the song (e.g., Dire Straits' Sultans of Swing [2]), INXS and other bands of the time had arthouse filmmakers like Richard Lowenstein [3] doing much more creative work. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_(Australian_TV_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_(Australian_TV_progr... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_7qkRwcMFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_7qkRwcMFc [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lowenstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lowenstein

listenallyall 5y ago
This is a pretty hot take. INXS had no MTV visibility until around 4 or 5 years after the channel started, by which time, plenty of artists had done "creative work". AC/DC was popular, but they pretty much ONLY released straight performance videos. Contrast them with Van Halen, who also initially released concert videos, although they recognized the power of the medium and focused on David Lee Roth's crazy leg kicks and Eddie's solos to make extremely watchable videos... and later pivoted to classic studio videos like Hot For Teacher. Olivia Newton-John's enormous popularity was due to Grease, not MTV. If anything, despite her one big hit (Physical), her career under-performed, compared to other female solo acts of her era (Madonna, Cyndi Lauper). And then you top it off by naming Dire Straits as an example of "just performing the song" when ultimately, that exact band released perhaps the most iconic and unforgettable video of all time.
- wyldfire 5y ago
  Sultans came 3-4 years before MTV and ~7 years before "money for nothing" but it's a funny example artist to choose, I agree. "Money for nothing" was an early iconic video and interesting early use of CG.
  - tomhoward 5y ago
    Yeah I chose it because it was such a contrast with Money for Nothing, illustrating how things changed with MTV.
- tomhoward 5y ago
  Sure, AC/DC wasn’t such a great example; I added that as an afterthought. And yep, ONJ already had US success - but she was able to hit the ground running with cool videos when MTV started, and she’d been big on Countdown for a few years before Grease happened. But the point holds up well for Men at Work, INXS and also Split Enz. INXS’s first US chart success came in 1983 with Shabooh Shoobah, that was recorded in 1982. The video for The One Thing [1], though low-budget, was very much not a filmed performance of the song, whereas the Van Halen videos I can find from that era were (though of course Van Halen would have been fast to catch up, innovators that there were). Then in 1983 they released Original Sin [2], which was produced by Nile Rodgers and had Daryl Hall singing backing vocals, so they were already in the big league by then. The albums The Swing (1984) and Listen Like Thieves (1985) all charged well in the US, thanks in big part to cool videos and MTV airplay. Split Enz was one of the very first bands shown on MTV, with History Never Repeats [3]. They originated from New Zealand but were active in Australia and appeared on Countdown a lot, and thus had cool videos ready to go. As for Dire Straits, the whole reason I mentioned the pre-MTV track Sultans of Swing was for its contrast with their work after MTV was established. [1] https://youtu.be/XJyKTNdPL5s https://youtu.be/XJyKTNdPL5s [2] https://youtu.be/PTULqzrhBWA https://youtu.be/PTULqzrhBWA [3] https://youtu.be/tzuJXqgsiSM https://youtu.be/tzuJXqgsiSM
  - listenallyall 5y ago
    Split Enz? I mean, ok, but I'll take Talking Heads if we're comparing bands "well-prepared for the emergence of MTV." Once In a Lifetime was released in 1980. Enough said. Men At Work made a terrific song in Down Under, and an excellent video. Wish we'd heard more from Colin Hay. INXS is a fine band, but hardly pioneers of music videos, and despite what you wrote, were virtually invisible on MTV until 1985 and really didn't hit their stride until the Kick album in 1987. Given that MTV launched in 1981, INXS does not bolster your initial statement that "Australian artists were uniquely well-prepared for the emergence of MTV." To suggest that Van Halen needed to "catch up" is absurd, given that 1984 was released in, you guessed it, 1984. You also seem to think performance videos are inferior to concept videos... Van Halen's greatest strength as a band was their performances. Check out Unchained... insanely great from DLR's first leap to the massive wall of speakers, to the fans enthusiasm, to lighting Alex's gong on fire at the end. Impossible to watch without wanting to go see them live.
- caf 5y ago
  There's a more iconic "video" than Subterranean Homesick Blues?
gerdesj 5y ago
I saw INXS in Cardiff in 1990ish, always been a fan of AC/DC - never saw them live though. I remember M@W's iconic "(I come from a land) Down Under" absolutely smashing it out of the park on the UK's Top of the Pops. I think you'll find that one or two other bands produced videos as well as their music: The Beatles did Yellow Submarine and a few other tunes back in the day - Sgt Peppers is quite well thought of too. The Who did Pinball wizard and the like. Sir Cliff Richard did pretty much everything, with and without the Shadows! The Strolling Bones, err Rolling Stones ran out one or two tunes and a few decent vids. Duran Duran were a bit later. David Bowie managed to keep a tune and a look. Queen have a few fans. Why do you need to single out Australian artists? There is no need to get all chauvinistic. Music is universal. I am a fan of AC/DC, Bach, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Deep Purple, Beethoven, Iron Maiden, Rachmaninov, Black Sabbath, Kylie, that bloke wot wrote Finlandia and rather a lot more.
- tomhoward 5y ago
  Not intending to chauvinistic/nationalistic! Most of my favorite artists these days are non-Australian. I was just pointing out a notable historical phenomenon. As someone else pointed out, UK had Top of the Pops from the 60s, hence a lot of the UK acts also doing artistic videos, whereas US artists were generally just doing recorded live performances at the beginning.
shortformblog 5y ago
While I see others disagreeing with this, I do find it really interesting and think that this in an interesting angle to dive into—how musicians in other countries prepared for MTV without even realizing it. It’s worth noting that Olivia Newton-John was well-known to American audiences thanks to Grease and the fact that she already had a longstanding music career in the U.S. by the time MTV came along, but certainly it might have helped with the production values on “Physical.”
- digisign 5y ago
  Also had country tunes in the 70s and Xanadu in 80.
Reason077 5y ago
Here's the first 12 videos they played. It's a mix of American and "foreign" (mostly UK) bands, but it's interesting to compare the different styles. The UK (and NZ) videos are slick, artistically produced music videos in the modern style we'd recognise today. But the US ones are mostly just simple recordings of the bands performing live. Did the US just not have the concept of music videos before MTV came along? The Buggles (UK) Pat Benatar (USA) Rod Stewart (UK) The Who (UK) Ph.D. (UK) The Pretenders (UK, but the singer was American) Todd Rundgren (USA) Styx (USA) Robin Lane & The Chartbusters (USA) Split Enz (New Zealand) 38 Special (USA) Rod Stewart (again!) (UK)
- ss2003 5y ago
  There were music videos on US TV before MTV. Night Flight was on Weekends around midnight.
  - LevGoldstein 5y ago
    HBO also aired videos periodically between movies, prior to MTV's existence.
  - tomhoward 5y ago
    Night Flight was on Weekends around midnight I guess the point is that Countdown in Australia and Top of the Pops in the UK were prime time and very mainstream. In Australia then there were only four TV channels (with no subscription TV), and Countdown on Saturday evening was the thing that most kids/teenagers watched, in many cases with their parents. And without even many music radio stations operating, it was a primary way people discovered new music, and it was a hugely influential program. A lot of artists we remember as the biggest bands of the late 70s and 80s – e.g., Blondie, ABBA, John Mellencamp, Meat Loaf, Boz Scaggs and Cyndi Lauper – had their first chart success anywhere in the world in Australia, thanks to being played on Countdown. Politicians would go on there when campaigning. Prince Charles even appeared in a famously bad interview.
    - pm215 5y ago
Reason077 5y ago
> "There was a national Saturday night pop music show called Countdown [1], that ran from 1974" ... which was surely inspired by the BBC's "Top Of The Pops", which began in 1964: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_of_the_Pops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_of_the_Pops
- tomhoward 5y ago
  Right, and as another commenter pointed out, the UK artists shown at the start of MTV were also doing more artistic videos, whereas US acts tended to do more straight filmed performances.
jay_kyburz 5y ago
When I was late teens early 20's I didn't want to go out, I wanted to stay home and watch RAGE! I'd only sleep once the started the countdown in the early hours of the morning.
- dwd 5y ago
  RAGE was a great way to discover new music - basically a mix of JJJ Unearthed (video edition) along with new US and UK indie videos.
  - jay_kyburz 5y ago
    I really loved the guest programming as well.
    - partomniscient 5y ago
      Agree. It was how a lot of us Aussies would learn the iconic songs that inspired bands and there was a lot of commonality despite the resulting bands being very different. Its how we knew about The Pixies way before 'that movie' came out, and if you watched Rage guest programmed more than twice, chances are you found out who The Smiths were. The Rage programmers were great, MTV in comparison had a lot of excitement but more production and less music, and it didn't help that our local MTV in Australia was hosted by Richard Wilkins... Rage was no-nonsense exposure to music, MTV was more about the hype, although Public Enemy did get broadcast on both. Music videos can be a great artform, but we're probably slowly losing them thanks to digital consumption diversity and attention deficit surplus which was ironically heavily encouraged by MTV's fast and furious editing style.
alfiedotwtf 5y ago
Also, RAGE is the longest (still) running music TV show in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(TV_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(TV_program)
leoc 5y ago
The same MTV effect is credited with boosting the US success of UK New Wave and synthpop acts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_British_Invasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_British_Invasion . Conversely, as other have pointed out, the advent of MTV wasn't such great news if you happened to be a black performer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV#Breaking_the_'color_barrier' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV#Breaking_the_'color_barrie...
ASalazarMX 5y ago
> When most videos were just of the group on a studio stage performing the song [..] other bands of the time had arthouse filmmakers [..] doing much more creative work. As a teen, this made me consider same-song-performance-but-on-video artists as lazy and cheap, and single-handedly fueled my appreciation for Australian bands. Didn't know they pioneered the concept.

listenallyall 5y ago

This is a pretty hot take. INXS had no MTV visibility until around 4 or 5 years after the channel started, by which time, plenty of artists had done "creative work". AC/DC was popular, but they pretty much ONLY released straight performance videos. Contrast them with Van Halen, who also initially released concert videos, although they recognized the power of the medium and focused on David Lee Roth's crazy leg kicks and Eddie's solos to make extremely watchable videos... and later pivoted to classic studio videos like Hot For Teacher. Olivia Newton-John's enormous popularity was due to Grease, not MTV. If anything, despite her one big hit (Physical), her career under-performed, compared to other female solo acts of her era (Madonna, Cyndi Lauper). And then you top it off by naming Dire Straits as an example of "just performing the song" when ultimately, that exact band released perhaps the most iconic and unforgettable video of all time.

wyldfire 5y ago
Sultans came 3-4 years before MTV and ~7 years before "money for nothing" but it's a funny example artist to choose, I agree. "Money for nothing" was an early iconic video and interesting early use of CG.
- tomhoward 5y ago
  Yeah I chose it because it was such a contrast with Money for Nothing, illustrating how things changed with MTV.
tomhoward 5y ago
Sure, AC/DC wasn’t such a great example; I added that as an afterthought. And yep, ONJ already had US success - but she was able to hit the ground running with cool videos when MTV started, and she’d been big on Countdown for a few years before Grease happened. But the point holds up well for Men at Work, INXS and also Split Enz. INXS’s first US chart success came in 1983 with Shabooh Shoobah, that was recorded in 1982. The video for The One Thing [1], though low-budget, was very much not a filmed performance of the song, whereas the Van Halen videos I can find from that era were (though of course Van Halen would have been fast to catch up, innovators that there were). Then in 1983 they released Original Sin [2], which was produced by Nile Rodgers and had Daryl Hall singing backing vocals, so they were already in the big league by then. The albums The Swing (1984) and Listen Like Thieves (1985) all charged well in the US, thanks in big part to cool videos and MTV airplay. Split Enz was one of the very first bands shown on MTV, with History Never Repeats [3]. They originated from New Zealand but were active in Australia and appeared on Countdown a lot, and thus had cool videos ready to go. As for Dire Straits, the whole reason I mentioned the pre-MTV track Sultans of Swing was for its contrast with their work after MTV was established. [1] https://youtu.be/XJyKTNdPL5s https://youtu.be/XJyKTNdPL5s [2] https://youtu.be/PTULqzrhBWA https://youtu.be/PTULqzrhBWA [3] https://youtu.be/tzuJXqgsiSM https://youtu.be/tzuJXqgsiSM
- listenallyall 5y ago
  Split Enz? I mean, ok, but I'll take Talking Heads if we're comparing bands "well-prepared for the emergence of MTV." Once In a Lifetime was released in 1980. Enough said. Men At Work made a terrific song in Down Under, and an excellent video. Wish we'd heard more from Colin Hay. INXS is a fine band, but hardly pioneers of music videos, and despite what you wrote, were virtually invisible on MTV until 1985 and really didn't hit their stride until the Kick album in 1987. Given that MTV launched in 1981, INXS does not bolster your initial statement that "Australian artists were uniquely well-prepared for the emergence of MTV." To suggest that Van Halen needed to "catch up" is absurd, given that 1984 was released in, you guessed it, 1984. You also seem to think performance videos are inferior to concept videos... Van Halen's greatest strength as a band was their performances. Check out Unchained... insanely great from DLR's first leap to the massive wall of speakers, to the fans enthusiasm, to lighting Alex's gong on fire at the end. Impossible to watch without wanting to go see them live.
caf 5y ago
There's a more iconic "video" than Subterranean Homesick Blues?

gerdesj 5y ago

I saw INXS in Cardiff in 1990ish, always been a fan of AC/DC - never saw them live though. I remember M@W's iconic "(I come from a land) Down Under" absolutely smashing it out of the park on the UK's Top of the Pops. I think you'll find that one or two other bands produced videos as well as their music: The Beatles did Yellow Submarine and a few other tunes back in the day - Sgt Peppers is quite well thought of too. The Who did Pinball wizard and the like. Sir Cliff Richard did pretty much everything, with and without the Shadows! The Strolling Bones, err Rolling Stones ran out one or two tunes and a few decent vids. Duran Duran were a bit later. David Bowie managed to keep a tune and a look. Queen have a few fans. Why do you need to single out Australian artists? There is no need to get all chauvinistic. Music is universal. I am a fan of AC/DC, Bach, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Deep Purple, Beethoven, Iron Maiden, Rachmaninov, Black Sabbath, Kylie, that bloke wot wrote Finlandia and rather a lot more.

tomhoward 5y ago
Not intending to chauvinistic/nationalistic! Most of my favorite artists these days are non-Australian. I was just pointing out a notable historical phenomenon. As someone else pointed out, UK had Top of the Pops from the 60s, hence a lot of the UK acts also doing artistic videos, whereas US artists were generally just doing recorded live performances at the beginning.

shortformblog 5y ago

While I see others disagreeing with this, I do find it really interesting and think that this in an interesting angle to dive into—how musicians in other countries prepared for MTV without even realizing it. It’s worth noting that Olivia Newton-John was well-known to American audiences thanks to Grease and the fact that she already had a longstanding music career in the U.S. by the time MTV came along, but certainly it might have helped with the production values on “Physical.”

digisign 5y ago
Also had country tunes in the 70s and Xanadu in 80.

Reason077 5y ago

Here's the first 12 videos they played. It's a mix of American and "foreign" (mostly UK) bands, but it's interesting to compare the different styles. The UK (and NZ) videos are slick, artistically produced music videos in the modern style we'd recognise today. But the US ones are mostly just simple recordings of the bands performing live. Did the US just not have the concept of music videos before MTV came along? The Buggles (UK) Pat Benatar (USA) Rod Stewart (UK) The Who (UK) Ph.D. (UK) The Pretenders (UK, but the singer was American) Todd Rundgren (USA) Styx (USA) Robin Lane & The Chartbusters (USA) Split Enz (New Zealand) 38 Special (USA) Rod Stewart (again!) (UK)

ss2003 5y ago
There were music videos on US TV before MTV. Night Flight was on Weekends around midnight.
- LevGoldstein 5y ago
  HBO also aired videos periodically between movies, prior to MTV's existence.
- tomhoward 5y ago
  Night Flight was on Weekends around midnight I guess the point is that Countdown in Australia and Top of the Pops in the UK were prime time and very mainstream. In Australia then there were only four TV channels (with no subscription TV), and Countdown on Saturday evening was the thing that most kids/teenagers watched, in many cases with their parents. And without even many music radio stations operating, it was a primary way people discovered new music, and it was a hugely influential program. A lot of artists we remember as the biggest bands of the late 70s and 80s – e.g., Blondie, ABBA, John Mellencamp, Meat Loaf, Boz Scaggs and Cyndi Lauper – had their first chart success anywhere in the world in Australia, thanks to being played on Countdown. Politicians would go on there when campaigning. Prince Charles even appeared in a famously bad interview.
  - pm215 5y ago

Reason077 5y ago

> "There was a national Saturday night pop music show called Countdown [1], that ran from 1974" ... which was surely inspired by the BBC's "Top Of The Pops", which began in 1964: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_of_the_Pops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_of_the_Pops

tomhoward 5y ago
Right, and as another commenter pointed out, the UK artists shown at the start of MTV were also doing more artistic videos, whereas US acts tended to do more straight filmed performances.

jay_kyburz 5y ago

When I was late teens early 20's I didn't want to go out, I wanted to stay home and watch RAGE! I'd only sleep once the started the countdown in the early hours of the morning.

dwd 5y ago
RAGE was a great way to discover new music - basically a mix of JJJ Unearthed (video edition) along with new US and UK indie videos.
- jay_kyburz 5y ago
  I really loved the guest programming as well.
  - partomniscient 5y ago
    Agree. It was how a lot of us Aussies would learn the iconic songs that inspired bands and there was a lot of commonality despite the resulting bands being very different. Its how we knew about The Pixies way before 'that movie' came out, and if you watched Rage guest programmed more than twice, chances are you found out who The Smiths were. The Rage programmers were great, MTV in comparison had a lot of excitement but more production and less music, and it didn't help that our local MTV in Australia was hosted by Richard Wilkins... Rage was no-nonsense exposure to music, MTV was more about the hype, although Public Enemy did get broadcast on both. Music videos can be a great artform, but we're probably slowly losing them thanks to digital consumption diversity and attention deficit surplus which was ironically heavily encouraged by MTV's fast and furious editing style.

alfiedotwtf 5y ago

Also, RAGE is the longest (still) running music TV show in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(TV_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(TV_program)

leoc 5y ago

The same MTV effect is credited with boosting the US success of UK New Wave and synthpop acts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_British_Invasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_British_Invasion . Conversely, as other have pointed out, the advent of MTV wasn't such great news if you happened to be a black performer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV#Breaking_the_'color_barrier' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV#Breaking_the_'color_barrie...

ASalazarMX 5y ago

> When most videos were just of the group on a studio stage performing the song [..] other bands of the time had arthouse filmmakers [..] doing much more creative work. As a teen, this made me consider same-song-performance-but-on-video artists as lazy and cheap, and single-handedly fueled my appreciation for Australian bands. Didn't know they pioneered the concept.