With an attempt at amplifying the whimper, TRL went out yesterday. I didn't see it, nor did I care to, as its prolonged half-decade decline hadn't given me any reason to rush off the bus and catch The After School Special, competing in the same time slot as Christopher Lowell for the stay home moms. "Hegemony" gets tossed around a bunch when talking about TRL's run through the nineties and up to the less serious pre-9/11 years, and I think that's pretty fair. It was also the last bastion of music on Music Television; now with the surreality of "Paris Hilton's My New BFF" (rightfully) heading up the fleet, maybe the diaspora's actually finished. The ghost given up.
Idolator has the best analysis/nostalgia trip I've seen so far. They also provided me with the TRL Top Ten, as far as influential videos on the teen scream fest:
1. Britney Spears - Baby One More Time (1/12/99)I gotta say, that's pretty damn good, even with the holes. No Aaliyah? And what about "The Boy Is Mine," or the Nas/Diddy crucifix controversy?
2. Eminem - The Real Slim Shady (6/30/00)
3. Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way (6/29/99)
4. N*Sync - Bye Bye Bye (3/14/00)
5. Christina Aguilara - Dirrty (10/15/02)
6. Kid Rock - Bawitdaba (2/15/00)
7. Beyonce feat. Jay-Z - Crazy in Love (6/15/03)
8. Usher feat. Ludacris and Lil Jon - Yeah (10/5/04)
9. Blink-182 - What’s My Age Again (10/17/00)
10. OutKast - Hey Ya! (9/15/03)
It's strange that I can still recall those incidental occurrences from almost ten years back in some cases, but maybe it speaks to the power of TRL, when it really served as the pop(ulist) forum for music that everyone could/should agree on. It was all about mass appeal, and they never failed, until new forms that allowed for even more direct contact than that television dinosaur.
Maybe I'll check in on it, after all...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment