Who remembers 120 Minutes on MTV?

[rumguy]

When I was 15 and 16 I'd stay up on Sunday nights to catch cool videos from bands like Love and Rockets, REM, Midnite Oil, The Cure, They Might Be Giants, Siouxie and the Banshees and many others.

Those were good days. The underground alternative music scene was still high quality...and there was a feeling that anything was possible, that our culture was changing for the better - and it was, Bush I was defeated in '92.

Am I just looking back on my past with rose-colored glasses? Or was there something special about those days?

[jonnyblitz]

1. ME!!

that is where I discovered who is now one of my most favorite bands ever the Dandy Warhols!! :thumbsup:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

3. Me too!! Loved that show!

I have a couple on videotape-so many good bands back then!

[45th Med]

2. Also where I discovered my 2 favorite Scottish Bands....Trash Can Sinatras

and Aztec Camera

[Khephra]

4. I'm a 120 Minutes brat!

Growing up in suburban Indianapolis, 120 Minutes was the only way I would ever, ever, ever hear some of the bands that I heard and grew to love. I'd say 80% of my current taste in music has been influenced by either "old-school" 120 Minutes, Post-Modern MTV, or Headbangers Ball.

[45th Med]

5. BTW, I used to watch 120 Mins in Germany on Satellite

nt

[Foehammer]

6. me too

who was the host?

Was it Matt Pinfield something?

[Duncan Grant]

7. I go way back...Peter Murphy ring a bell? (Probably not.)

Anyway, I remember that's the first place I saw Depeche Mode's "Strangelove". Loved it.

[confusionisnext]

9. Did he have a video that went "Cuts you up and spits you out?"

If so then, yeah I remember.

[Khephra]

10. Bauhaus, of course

Lots of us old-time goths and 120minuters here.

:toast:

[jonnyblitz]

17. hell yeah Peter Murphy rings a bell!!

:hi:

[confusionisnext]

8. Back when MTV played MUSIC

the term "alternative" actually had meaning. 120 Minutes helped me recover from the 80s hair metal music of my middle school days. "Kool Thing", "Here Comes Your Man" were classic -- the underground was a lot more creative and churning back then. These days it seems that alternative has been replaced by indie, which to me is just plain boring.

[Khephra]

11. 120 Minutes

120 Minutes

First Show 1984
Last Show 2003
Genre Music
Network MTV
Slot Day Various
Slot Time Various
Jumped The Shark when... Votes
Matt Pinfield joins the show 5
Alternative becomes mainstream 4
Exit...Stage Left (Matt Pinfield) 3
Exit...Stage Left (Dave Kendall) 3
Exit...Stage Left (Kevin Seal) 2
Matt Pinfield starts doing educational spots 1
Duran Duran hosts 1
Lewis Largent 1
Booker hosts 1
Never Jumped 1
Alanis Morrisette 1
http://jumptheshark.com/o/120minutes.htm

[rumguy]

12. I had no idea it lasted until 2003

the whole alterna scence went downhill, IMO, in the mid 90's...

Who was host in the late 80s and early 90s?

[Foehammer]

13. til 2003 wow

I liked Dave Kendall

That who i was really thinking about
I prob. stopped watching when Pinfield showed up.

[Khephra]

22. It went to MTV2

Headbangers Ball is back and actually good again. I haven't checked to see if 120 minutes is back on. I bet it will be someday. That show never dies.

[rumguy]

14. A poster from Kephs links sums up my feelings about the show

"# The beginning of the 90's was a very dynamic time for pop music. REM had been in the national spotlight for a few years and the whole concept of alternative was getting in to the mainstream, but the sound of all these great underground bands wasn't quite top 40 enough to pull them out of obscurity. It's this happy time when 120 Minutes was worth watching. Dave Kendall was the perfect host, blending Euro-trash, a shmeer of queer and just a touch of self-satisfaction that made him deliciously decadent to watch. Then came grunge. I think the show would have survived this dark period of crass commercialism if MTV hadn't made the choice to shift the paradigm completely by denying the euro component of alternative and firing Dave Kendall and completely embracing rock with Matt Pinhead. The guy is obviously quite knowledgeable about music, but he is not a compelling or even interesting host. I strongly agree with the previous review, Pinhead is too quick to embrace hard rock-oriented bands as the second coming of Jesus without giving cred to the Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen and the like that are REALLY an alternative to mainstream rock. Thank god we don't call it alternative anymore. I don't think I've heard anyone in years use the term alternative. At least we have that to be thankful for."

[Philostopher]

30. Yanno ...

I think I may well have seen one of the first shows, if not the first. 1984 was the year I first had access to cable, and we watched MTV on the weekends a bunch -- especially Sunday nights, which was when 120 Minutes was originally on.

I remember literally rolling on the floor laughing when I saw the Replacements' 'Bastards Of Young' video the first time. There's nothing more subversive than watching a band scream 'bite me, MTV!' right there on MTV.

We used to call Kevin Seal 'Kevin Big Fuckin' Deal' because we thought he was a moron. He always sounded like some frat boy who'd rather be drinking Bud and listening to Skynyrd, though he did at least seem to have some cursory knowledge of the particular bands he was playing on a given night.

[HuckleB]

15. Yup.

There were actually some better local video shows on late nights at the time, but it did serve its purpose, in general.

[solinvictus]

16. 120 Minutes and Post-Modern

I loved both programs in the late 1980's. Souixsie and the Banshees, the Smiths, Ministry, My Life With the Thrill Kill Cult, and others. I also loved a program called "The Buzz". The show, written by William S. Burroughs, made a thirty minute collage of footage based around a theme. "Liquid TV" was great too. Now, it's all shit on MTV. It's like I told one of my workers last year; I'm not old, your music just really sucks.

[Khephra]

19. "Liquid TV"

With theme music by Mark Motherbough, IIRC and spelled it right.

Also Aeon Flux and The Maxx.

[jonnyblitz]

21. I loved Liquid TV

Of the 4 bands you listed I saw all of them live except My Life With the Thrill Kill Cult. I saw Souxsie twice in the 80's and the Smiths once. I saw Ministry in Hartford this year for the first time. They were awesome.

[solinvictus]

25. Siouxsie and the Banshees

I saw them in 1989 with Downtown Julie Brown on "Club MTV". They seemed so bored. I got into them with their 1986 album "Tinderbox", which is still my favorite. The Creatures are pretty good, but I miss the original band. Oh, I also forgot Public Image Limited, the Smithereens, the Church, Love and Rockets, Bauhaus, the Sugarcubes, and really old REM. God, I feel old. I can remember when Camelot Music, an old mall chain, actually had an alternative section.

[jonnyblitz]

27. Yup.

I feel old, too.

[Foehammer]

18. Remember AMP that was a good show on MTV (nt)

[rumguy]

20. never heard of it (nt)

[jonnyblitz]

23. sounds familiar.

was it techno-ish?

[Foehammer]

24. Yes it was

If I recall it came on either before or after 120 minutes.
anyway it was different music something MTV dropped from their line up long ago.

[JanMichael]

26. I was older than you, 21 or so, but I loved it too.

Great music, even the bad stuff was good compared to much of the over produced shit parading around as "Alternative" today.

Thanks for the memories!

[scottcsmith]

28. I do!

I have many fond memories of the "modern rock" scene from 1986-1990. And then grunge came along and made all of those bands irrelevant -- at least from a commercial sense. But not in my memory, and I have all of those great albums still.

[bhunt70]

29. Me, I used to love watching it in 12th grade and beyond...

Then when I went to college I had the best frickin music collection...