The rise, fall and death of metal on MTV

By ANDREW McDONALD

OF THE two recent Woodstock ‘99 documentaries, the only moment of comic relief – however childish or spiteful – was when the madness directed itself at MTV. The festival was nothing short of full- blown chaos stirred by punishing heat, illegal drugs, dehydration, sleeplessness, insanitary facilities and promoter/ vendor greed that resulted in violence, destruction, fires, sexual assault and death (all before addressing the antithetical musical climate to that of the ‘69 original). Perched side of stage but still visible to the overcrowded masses, MTV presenters are pelted with plastic bottles of who-knows-what until forced to flee. But defamation by a ticking time-bomb of an audience caught in a repressive, four-day endurance test disguised as an event, threw a vengeful little bone to any metalhead who may have resented the network’s continuous act of playing God with their beloved bands.

The Good: Woodstock wrath pertained to MTV’s exclusion of music videos in favour of reality TV, or your younger sibling’s favourite boy/ girl band when videos did air. And Limp Bizkit, for better or worse, seemed to be the only garage-conceived exception left standing, even if their Woodstock-rousing foreshadowed an eventual downfall. But metal’s dismissal was a tough blow, for since its inception it thrived upon the visual medium. After lit-up phones from early-hour inclusions of Quiet Riot to the ribbons and diatribes Dee Snider, and with no cable competition, MTV and metal enjoyed a decade-long reign, making saucy-riffed-icons out of every Ratt, Poison and Warrant to the bluesier Faster Pussycat, LA Guns and Guns N’ Roses plus every Great White Lion in between. Megadeth’s Peace Sells provided the intro to MTV News (cut off a split-second before royalty obligations) alongside high-production, cartoonish intros just quirky enough to repel parents. Budgets grew amidst post-apocalyptic valour and Tawny Kitaen ogling to rulings of pyro-filled stages and beholding the latest evolution in celluloid debauchery was all part of the fun… at least until one fateful decision at the turn of the decade annulled this extravagant little spectacle.

The Bad: Or perhaps it’s The Good. Natural selection. Metal rescued from parody. An MTV totally justified with heal-digging-vehicle Beavis and Butt-head! If Bon Jovi smiling at us at every turn wasn’t getting monotonous, Ricky Nelson’s platinum-blond, twin sons traded acoustic for electric guitars in what can only be described as a rock abomination akin to the likes of Hanson or Jonas Brothers in the decades to come. And what’s worse was that Nelson’s brand of mum-fawning-metal, for a time, was really big! One would therefore assume that Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit single-handedly decimated the genre and anyone associated with it in one, merciless attack. But it was another Seattle band (a glam rock act four years prior) that unwittingly drove the first nail in the metal coffin. MTV played judge, jury and executioner in March 1990 when executive Rick Krim (arguably by nature) refused to give his stamp of approval to yet another hard rock clone by siding with ‘the new thing’ which he recognised in the modestly produced video for “Man In The Box” by Alice In Chains. According to Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour’s 2021 book Nothin’ But a Good Time, Krim changed the musical guard when dismissing a Geffen-endorsed video by Thunder (given the timeline and video description it’s likely would-be anthem Backstreet Symphony). The commonly accepted, official cause-for-alarm when Nirvana reached number one wouldn’t take place until August the following year. And sure there, were inklings that all was alive and well beyond the grungy turnover, from Firehouse accepting an American Music Award in 1992 to Guns N’ Roses filling open airfields

throughout the same year (the Melbourne GN’R show of which could easily have sparked a Woodstock ‘99 fiasco of its own… a story for another day) but the legend remains otherwise true: grunge was a heavy metal bulldozer. But MTV, it appears, was behind the wheel.

The Ugly: 1992 was the same year MTV launched its first reality television series, The Real World. The producers stood behind their fly-on-the-wall invention claiming that MTV was never intended to be a constant stream of music (despite the acronym) and only introduced the show to combat channel surfing at four-minute intervals should an unwanted video pop up, effectively catapulting us to the MTV of today, the one where no music wins, metal or not. Video licensing costs proved less than profitable, so much so that the original Australian MTV would be discontinued after a seven-year run airing late Friday and Saturday nights on Channel Nine. The condensed, best-of-the-week version hosted by Richard Wilkins was launched in 1987, notably the same year Channel Ten introduced Saturday morning’s Video Hits and ABC gave us Rage (to date, the oldest music television program currently still in production). Australians even in 1999 surely weren’t compelled to inflict harm on an MTV largely devoid of VJs (more a fixture Channel V) when it did become a 24-hour cable channel. Besides, essential viewing for metalheads from the Optus to Foxtel days was generally scarce. Headbangers Ball, and later, the Eddie Trunk-led That Metal Show which skipped between sub-stations of MTV and VH1, aired at sporadic, wee-hour times. But to TMS’s credit, their glorious 2008 to 2015 tenure was as close to an eighties reunion as we were ever likely to see.

In a post-Limp Bizkit world, how did the traditional metal format by way of standard-tuned riffery and furious solos make something of a triumphant return? Maybe it was when At the Gates’ Slaughter Of the Soul LP was closely appraised by Lamb Of God, or maybe, for the sake of this article, it was MTV again, but this time an MTV completely oblivious of generating any metal awareness at all. The subject of overplayed earworm “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus (2000) was such a geek that he would ‘listen to Iron Maiden’, even if their instruments weren’t brave enough to gallop. Meanwhile, riding high on their sophomore Toxicity (2001), System Of A Down informed Rage viewers (2002) “if you don’t like Iron Maiden, we don’t like you!” MTV gave Jackass star and public nuisance Bam Margera $300,000 an episode to do whatever he wanted on Viva La Bam (2003) and what he wanted was for Slayer and GWAR to play in his backyard. The star of MTV’s The Ashlee Simpson Show (2004), however ironic, could be seen wearing Megadeth’s Peace Sells era ‘crushed dove’ tee, thus educating new generations … or turning fashion-tip devotees onto the latest trend. Vic and Eddie wept.

Personally I love the few sketchy fragments of the tail-end of MTV’s golden era that I can recall, like the supposed world premiere of Motley Crue’s “Primal Scream” (reminiscent of Alice In Chains’ “Angry Chair”?) and the very idea that Cinderella’s latest, “Shelter Me”, was on Channel Nine… Channel Nine! I also love a good celebrity sighting which is why I lied my way into the MTV Awards by boldly name-dropping every living Aussie label A&R when the short-lived presentation launched in a circus tent in Sydney, 2005. I’d almost given up until one security legend took pity, even when, surprise, surprise, I still wasn’t on the guest list, and produced tickets warning ‘don’t tell anyone where you got these!’ I’d still love to know who they belonged to because I was closer to the stage than award-sweepers Green Day behind me. Late heiress/ reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith danced onstage with Daniel Johns; rapper Ja Rule leered off-camera at rival label rapper/ MTV’s Pimp My Ride host Xibit, but I only went to desperate lengths to observe metal royalty and undisputed reality TV champions, The Osbournes, in their semi-natural habitat. You better believe I’d have gladly copped a slew of fresh-urine-filled bottles for those MTV hosts. The ever-professional Jack and Sharon were always close-up ready. I grinned to no avail at a bored Kellie Osbourne, slumped a few unoccupied seats away after her forgettable single performance. But what made my great rock n’ roll swindle worthwhile was watching the prince of darkness himself, in true form, switch from crazed, screeching onscreen trouper, to irritable, semi-retiree while letting his discontent be known to super-fan-come-personal-assistant Tony Dennis who ushered the great and powerful Oz from stage to audience depending on his next cue.

For good measure, I also lied my way out of MTV in 2004 when passing their former studios in Times Square by insisting I didn’t have time to accept free tickets to their flagship program Total Request Live (hosted by Woodstock ‘99-bottle-peltee Carson Daly) after learning that Nick Lachey (reality TV star of Newlyweds and then brother-in-law to metal-tee-wearer Ashlee Simpson) would be the special guest. I don’t regret it either. This simply wasn’t MTV as I knew it. Thankfully, nearly one year later and exactly two weeks prior to the first MTV Awards in Australia, the launch of YouTube would signal the end of the network’s musical relevance once and for all, and to this day it remains home to every heavy metal video I could possibly conjure up and more, inspiring bands to flourish with visual freedom, repeated views and without the fear of rejection (providing you turn those comments off)… and until the Nirvana of new video formats emerges, long may it reign!