When MTV first launched way back in 1981 Mark Goodman, one of the networks first 'video jockeys' quickly became a household name. Not only did he introduce videos but he also hosted The Week In Rock, one of MTV's most popular shows back in the day. Goodman loved to go into the studio with various artists and watch them get lost in the process of making music. He also said in a new interview that he loved connecting with musicians through interviews and finding common ground. One thing that Goodman didn't love was Kurt Loder, a writer for Rolling Stone that bashed music television until being offered a job by MTV.
In that recent interview Goodman claims to respect Loder's intelligence but didn't appreciate how he slammed MTV every chance that he got and then suddenly loved the network once they were lining his pocket. Goodman also felt that once Loder was hired his own role would be diminished to the point that it simply wasn't going to be enjoyable enough to stay on.
"What I loved to do was talk to these people, talk to these artists. I loved traveling and going to meet them. Well, [Loder] was going to be doing all that, so that would relegate me to just doing VJ segments, which was fine, but not the only thing that I would like to do."
Goodman believes that the obviously book smart Loder didn't translate well for television and that it eventually cost MTV. Once the network started to backslide much of the actual music programming was replaced with half hour blocks of scripted shows. Were you a fan of Kurt Loder's MTV News reporting or do you kind of miss the good old days when the original VJ's like Mark Goodman were cranking out the hottest videos? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
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