It’s unattainable to overstate the influence MTV had when it launched in 1981. The daring new cable station captured the zeitgeist, placing the brand new medium of music movies on the forefront of popular culture. MTV additionally helped invent a brand-new on-air gig: the video jockey, a.
okay.a. VJ, with 5 younger, charismatic hosts who launched movies and interviewed artists.
Through the years, MTV would cycle by means of many alternative VJs earlier than deprioritizing music video programming altogether — a lot to the chagrin of anybody who grew up with MTV in its earlier days. However these unique VJs — Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J.
Jackson and Martha Quinn — stay icons of the period. Quinn et al weren’t simply the faces of MTV — additionally they turned real-life buddies, cohosting subsequent reveals collectively, and even coauthoring a tell-all e book, VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave , in 2013. Right here’s a have a look at what occurred to the unique VJs who helped make MTV so particular.
Martha Quinn Candy and perky Martha Quinn went straight from latest NYU graduate to MTV VJ, touchdown the job by means of a connection she’d made whereas wrapping up an internship on the radio station WNBC. She left MTV in 1986, however got here again in 1989, and in the end stayed with the channel till 1992. Associated: Bear in mind When Madonna Stole the First VMAs Debuting ‘Like a Virgin’? MEGA It’s nearly unattainable, give.
