When I was a not-so-rebellious preteen, MTV was the coolest. My dad introduced me to The Real World and Spring Break, but it was the music videos that really got me. As an aspiring music snob and wannabe aesthete, music videos were the perfect marriage of sound and sight.
Back then, bands couldn’t get away with not releasing videos. Fast forward ten years and the only recent-ish video I can recall is “Single Ladies.” Simply put, MTV hasn’t been “music television” for a while. So it makes sense that last week MTV finally announced a logo change.
I have no problem with MTV doing away with the “music television” on the bottom of its iconic Frank Olinsky-designed logo. It’s been more of a punchline than a tagline for some time now. But what’s with the weird cropping on the new logo? The chopping off of the graffiti V’s right arm is excusable, but the truncated M is just wack. The shape of the now bastardized letter recalls an oversized widescreen TV more than anything, which makes sense now that I think about it. But it doesn’t make it any less ugly, or make me any less nostalgic. Video killed the radio star, "reality" killed the video star but I still want my MTV.
