MTV Is Bringing Back Videos 24/7. Gen X Has Notes.

The network finally remembers what the 'M' stands for—only 30 years too late.

MTV recently announced it’s bringing back 24/7 music videos for one week only, from September 1 to 7. For Gen Xers, this is the equivalent of Doc pulling up in the DeLorean and saying, “We’re going back!” But something tells me they’re going to screw this up.

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Looking back, I didn’t realize that 1992 would be the year reality killed the video star.

I was sharing a roach-infested NYC apartment with my best friend, the late, great Adam Schlesinger.

Adam was dating a girl named Becky. One day over cold pizza, Becky announced she’d been cast on a new MTV show where a bunch of strangers would live together in a fancy loft in SoHo to see what happens when people stop being polite and start getting...You remember.

Adam and I rolled our eyes. “That’ll last,” we snickered. “Who wants to watch a bunch of random 20-somethings nobody’s ever heard of living in a giant apartment?”

That show turned out to be the first season of The Real World. Becky had an affair with one of the producers during the filming, causing him to be removed from the show. Adam even made a cameo in one episode.

Not only did we completely misjudge the staying power of this burgeoning thing called reality TV. We also completely missed the fact that The Real World would spell the beginning of the end for MTV.

Music videos were about to give way to unscripted shows like Road Rules, Jackass, and Laguna Beach.

For many of us, this felt like the death of our childhood.

It’s hard to explain the impact MTV had on pop culture in the 80s. And Gen X grew up during its golden age—roughly 1981 to 1992, which just so happens to mirror our formative years.

That’s why the news that MTV is bringing back wall-to-wall music videos for one week only, from September 1 to 7, was some kind of wonderful.

But only if they air the shit we want to see.

No Backstreet Boys. No Nickelback. We want a steady diet of Duran Duran, Peter Gabriel, The Thompson Twins, Pearl Jam, and Prince, please.

According to a press release, legendary MTV personalities will return to curate and spotlight their seven favorite music videos of all time. They didn’t say who, but I’m rooting for Martha Quinn, Nina Blackwood, and Kurt Loder (who is now, get this, 80 years old!)

These are the seven videos from the golden era that I think they should pick.

1. “Video Killed the Radio Star” — The Buggles

This was the first video MTV aired at 12:01 a.m. on 1 August 1981. According to the book I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, many on the staff thought this was a terrible idea. They wanted to open with a hit. Nobody knew this obscure 1979 song, but the message and the look were perfect. With his space-age glasses and robotic voice, lead singer Trevor Horn was declaring the start of something new. It still sounds like the future—all these years later.

Little-known fact: The second song MTV played was Pat Benatar’s “You Better Run.” A middle finger to the record labels, who weren’t exactly receptive to the idea of this upstart TV station playing their music for free.

2. “Rio” — Duran Duran

This is not my favorite Duran Duran song. That honor goes to “The Chauffeur.” But this is the quintessential Duran Duran video with all the elements: bright-colored, silk suits, eyeliner, blown-out mullets, and a body-painted woman named Rio who torments the band on a sailboat. Poor Nick Rhodes was seasick during the entire shoot. Shot in Antigua, the video introduced Duran Duran’s jet-set, Euro image to audiences around the world. Interestingly, the song isn’t about Brazil — it’s about wanting to become popular in the U.S. Another strange detail: The name and whereabouts of the model who played Rio are gone. We hope she’s dancing on the sand.

3. “I Ran (So Far Away)” — A Flock of Seagulls

This video is an artifact of early 1980s new wave culture. It should be in a museum, but instead it’s stuck in my mind, representing everything that was right and wrong about the decade. You've got aluminum-foiled mirrored walls, harsh lighting, futuristic vibes, and a lead singer whose hair looks like it had an unfortunate encounter with Hurricane Gloria. The video looks like a DIY art school project. It’s so cheap that you can see the reflections of the cameramen in the tin foil. But it works so well.

4. “Sledgehammer” — Peter Gabriel

On the opposite side of the effort spectrum, you have this cinematic masterpiece. Gabriel reportedly lay under a sheet of glass for 16 hours while the team filmed one frame at a time. The result is exploding fruit, dancing chickens, and Gabriel’s stop-motion head, which basically turned into a visual effects playground. It won nine MTV Video Music Awards in 1987. Still a record.

5. “Like a Prayer” — Madonna

This video is basically a MAGA nightmare. Madonna kisses the feet of the statue of a black saint who steps out of a cage to become her lover. There are images of burning crosses, stigmata, and a gospel choir. The video was so controversial at the time that Pepsi had to cancel a $5 million ad campaign featuring the pop diva and "Like a Prayer," after Christian groups and even the Pope called for boycotts. But Madonna never buckled under the pressure. “Art should be controversial, and that's all there is to it,'' she told the New York Times. It’s hard to imagine a pop star showing that kind of bravery today.

6. “Thriller” — Michael Jackson

No matter what you think of him today, MJ knew how to entertain, and he was a visionary when it came to music videos. The premiere of “Thriller” was an event. Directed by An American Werewolf in London’s John Landis and clocking in at nearly 14 minutes, Thriller was the most expensive music video ever made at the time. When it premiered on December 2, 1983, it drew millions of viewers and turned music videos into must-see TV. If you were between the ages of 10 and 35 back then, there’s a good chance you remember exactly where you were when you saw it.

7. “Take on Me” — a-ha

A-ha’s 1985 music video for ‘Take On Me’ has 2.2 billion views on YouTube and there’s a reason for that. Aside from having one of the catchiest hooks of all time, the video was revolutionary. It used a new technology called rotoscoping, which merged live-action and hand-drawn animation by tracing over filmed frames. It took about 16 weeks and roughly 3,000 frames to complete, but the result is a comic book come to life in a way that is still thrilling even in today’s CGI world.

Did I miss any of your favorites?