Dec 14

VH1

VH1
 
 
VH1  (originally an initialism of Video Hits One) is an American cable television network based in New York City.  It launched on January 1, 1985, in the old space of Turner Broadcasting’s short-lived Cable Music Channel.  The original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly older demographic than its sister channel, focusing on the lighter, softer side of popular music.  While VH1 occasionally plays music videos and the Top 20 Video Countdown, its recent claim to fame has been in the area of music-related reality programming, such as Behind the Music, the I Love . . . series, the Celebreality block of programming, and the channel’s overall focus on popular culture.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
I heard an ad on VH1 the other day that used a killer track by the Black Keys as the background music. 
 
(January 2012)
 
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Back when MTV and VH1 used to play music videos, and when I wasn’t watching anything else, I would often have one of those channels on, with my videocassette recorder at the ready, in case a video came on of a song that I really liked.  Particularly when there was a song in “heavy rotation” that I really wanted, I would often have the VCR already cued up, on “hold”, so that I would miss as little of the video as possible.  Sometimes I would get lucky, and I would already be recording a song when another one came on that I wanted as well. 
 
That happened one time with “No One Knows” by Queens of the Stone Age.  The time was back in the Garage Rock Revival period of the early 2000’s, when the White Stripes, the Hives, the Strokes, and several other great retro bands were really getting established.  I hadn’t heard the song before, but the beat sounded good, so I left the recorder running.  That song got to be a real favorite of mine, and I was particularly thrilled when I later recognized Dave Grohl – former drummer for Nirvana and front man for Foo Fighters – on drums in the video (that’s a video cap from the “No One Knows” music video above). 
 
(December 2012)
 
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Berry’s influence also shows up in places that you might not expect.  I once saw an interview with Joni Mitchell on VH1 where she said that her 1970 hit song “Big Yellow Taxi” was “pure Chuck Berry” to her. 

 

(June 2013/1)

 

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U. S. Senate hearings were held in 1985 about supposedly offensive song lyrics, where Twisted Sister lead singer Dee Snider and Frank Zappa (among others) testified.  A somewhat tongue-in-cheek TV movie about the controversy called Warning: Parental Advisory came out in 2002; it was created by VH1 and was directed by Mark Waters.  In one scene, appearing as himself, Dee Snider clomps into the Senate chambers in full Twisted Sister regalia to testify. 

 

(June 2013/2)

 

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Melissa Etheridge rose to rock stardom in the 1980’s and was one of the first prominent lesbians in any field of entertainment.  Also, VH1 had a series of Duets programs where Etheridge was paired with newer female singers, including Joan Osborne, Sophie B. Hawkins, Jewel, and Paula Cole.  Each of these performers has had a solid career with several hit albums.  After awhile, so many fine female performers were on the music scene that one of them, Sarah McLachlan organized a touring music festival featuring female singers or female-led bands called Lilith Fair.  The festival ran from 1997 to 1999 and was revived in 2010. 

 

(October 2013)

 

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“Cherry Bomb” became the opening track on the debut album by the Runaways and the band’s first single; while “Cherry Bomb” only made it to #106 on the Billboard singles charts, the song was named #52 on the list of the greatest hard rock songs of all time by VH1. 

 

(November 2013)
 
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As the years have gone by, appreciation of the Derek and the Dominos album Layla and Other Love Songs – which wasn’t even a critical favorite at the time – has grown, and the album makes several best-album lists.  VH1 named it #89, and Rolling Stone has it at #115.  

 

(May 2014)

 
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Terence Trent d’Arby, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent d’Arby – I remember there being a huge amount of hype associated with this album; the title alone promises more than almost anyone would be able to deliver.  There was a lot of that going around in the 1980’s, and VH1 mocked the era’s self-importance by naming one of their oldies shows The Big 80’s.  
 
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Shakespear’s Sister, Hormonally Yours – Shakespear’s Sister (note the missing “e”) is composed of Siobhan Fahey, a former member of Bananarama, and Marcella Detroit, who was the backing vocalist for Eric Clapton in the late 1970’s.  When I was living in New York, there was a channel on our local cable TV network called Video Jukebox.  There was a number that you could call and order your video, for which you were charged a dollar or so.  While you punched in the numbers on your telephone to order the video, those numbers would show up on the TV screen if you had that channel on, and that sure was cool.  Video Jukebox showed a lot of videos not available on MTV or VH1; after awhile, it was mostly rap and hip hop videos, but there were a lot of rock numbers early on.  That channel is where I frequently saw the video of their hit song “Stay”, a Top 5 hit on both sides of the Atlantic; the first half features tender singing from Marcella Detroit followed by unexpectedly menacing vocals by Siobhan Fahey.  This, their second album (from 1991) includes that song and numerous other engaging performances. 
 
(December 2015)
 
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I heard the story I believe on CBS Sunday Morning; my own seething anger at the time about the whole PMRC charade had been blunted somewhat by seeing the tongue-in-cheek 2002 movie that VH1 broadcast called Warning: Parental Advisory. (As an aside, I have no children of my own, and that might have affected how I feel about it all, though I very much doubt it). It seems that little Karenna Gore (11 years old at the time) was a Prince fan, and Mom and Dad bought her the Purple Rain soundtrack album. And then the track “Darling Nikki” came on; in the context of the film, the Prince character was engaging in what might be called “slut-shaming” today: 
I knew a girl named Nikki I guess you could say she was a sex fiend I met her in a hotel lobby Masturbating with a magazine
 
This was also a central story in their best-selling book, appearing on the third page of Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society: “The song went on and on, in a similar manner. I couldn’t believe my ears! The vulgar lyrics embarrassed both of us. At first, I was stunned — then I got mad!” 
(June 2016)
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Like most, I was introduced to Green Day with Dookie. I imagine that I found out about them through their music videos on MTV and/or VH1, as the rock-video era was winding down. As Wikipedia notes: “Dookie produced five hit singles for the band: ‘Longview’, ‘When I Come Around’, ‘Basket Case’, a re-recorded version of ‘Welcome to Paradise’, and the radio-only single ‘She’.” The whole album rocks though, not just the hits. 
(June 2017)
Last edited: April 8, 2021