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Why has nobody written a cultural history of MTV Europe and its role in shaping European youth culture in the 1990s?
What did it do? Along with U2, it was a key driver in the ascent of Ireland, introducing Europe to its other English-speaking country.
What did it do? Along with U2, it was a key driver in the ascent of Ireland, introducing Europe to its other English-speaking country.
It created common cultural referents, linking bored teenagers in living rooms across the continent. It was pre-internet, so it was one-way, but when they met on Erasmus, they knew how to talk with each other.
Oh yeah, it was a common _middle class_ youth culture.
Oh yeah, it was a common _middle class_ youth culture.
The phone-ins. Poles trying to make Portuguese laugh and vice versa.
Ray Cokes. Is he on Twitter? @raycokes is that you? Steve Blame is @steveblame it you? He arguably made the first attempt to cover a European Parliament election as a continental, not many-nations affair, long before Politico. Hell, before European Voice!
Obvs I'm not going to do it. Needs someone who knows about music and is a dab hand in the archives.
Things is, even though it was often lame, it gave teens around Europe a common coolness ideal to aspire to, something that hadn't been there before.
Is there a Brexit angle? Yes, probably - cable was rare in Britain, so relatively few people had MTV. Not so in Ireland, Benelux and Germany. Lack of exposure in the crucial years after the 31/12/92 completion of the Single Market? Quite possibly.
Remember sitting in a Brussels cinema around 92/93 time. Ray popped up in an ad. "Ray!" shrieked a few hundred teens as one.
And here's the one and only @steveblame, with an account of how he put together MTV Europe's pioneering European Parliament election coverage in 1994 https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-allparty-pop-music-and-polling-station-steve-blame-tunes-in-to-vote-europe-mtv-s-usinspired-campaign-to-get-young-people-out-to-the-polls-1422333.html
