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Journalism of Courage
MTV8217;s Total Request Live is going off the air after a decade, and all we can think of is Mariah Carey
Flashback, summer of 2001: a glassy-eyed Carey unexpectedly wanders onto the set and begins to wriggle out of her T-shirt. 8220;All I know is, I want one day off when I can go swimming and look at rainbows and, like, eat ice cream,8221; she says dreamily, as host Carson Daly8217;s chuckles grow increasingly panicked. 8220;And maybe, like, learn to ride a bicycle.8221;
Insta-classic. Try to find anyone age 18 to 29 who does not remember that moment.
So when MTV announced this week that TRL would broadcast its last fizzy countdown show in November, it felt like the end of 8230; something. Not that the show, which premiered in 1998, was ever that great. Formatwise, it8217;s uber-low-concept: a bunch of high-pitched teens pile into a Times Square studio and watch the day8217;s top music videos, emceed at first by Daly, later by a parade of lesser-known VJs. Occasionally an 8220;it8221; boy or girl of the current music scene drops in for a chat and to pump a new release.
But at least there8217;s the music. Which, OK, isn8217;t that great, either. But at least it8217;s there. TRL, that sentimental fossil, was one of the few remaining blocks of time in which people actually played guitars and sang on MTV.
That TRL managed to hang on as long as it did is more surprising than the news that it8217;s being cancelled. In the past few years, the concept of voter-generated countdown shows started to feel extraneous. With the on-demand availability of YouTube, why waste time voting again and again for your favourites at MTV.com?
Still, there was something nice about how TRL taught us about patience8212;waiting, with fingers crossed, to see whether our wish-list video would make the show. Waiting, with fingers crossed, to see whether Carey might show up again and what she might remove this time.
Without TRL, MTV is pretty much just 8230; TV.
_Monica Hesse, LATWP
