I had an epiphany the other night. I was sitting in my bed, flipping through the channels on television (because I have that kind of time) and came to the conclusion that something was missing: Music videos.

YES, I understand there are the stations like MTV2, MTV 3, and all the way to MTV25 on the intense Comcast packages, but I suppose I get a tad bit nostalgic when I think back to the old Top 20 Countdowns on VH1, or the Morning Wake Up MTV used to do back in the day. Although it was only about eight years ago (this is an estimation), it feels like it was in a much more distant time period.

Think about it. Music videos used to reign as king over the television waves, especially to our generation. There was Pop-Up Video, The Box, along with a bunch of other programs that had their main priority to showcase music videos. Even Total Request Live (TRL for all those that remember) used to be decent… unfortunately that went downhill along with the rest of MTV programming, but that’s a whole other animal to tackle.

I’m just saying, I miss the excitement of music videos. It was age where the Internet was not even close to being as prominent to the general public and the only place you could see them was on television. It was a place where music became visual. Concerts are visual, but at the same time, this was a concert and performance delivered to your home, something truly revolutionary for the time all this was occurring. Even crap songs could be redeemed by their awesome music videos.

There have been attempts to restart this dead art. The FUSE channel was okay for a little while.  But then again, it was on a premium channel you only got with Comcast or FIOS (or whatever deals that enabled a household to have over 1,000 channels). This is an issue. With a lack of general accessibility on television, no one is going to care about music videos. Especially when anyone can go on YouTube. This brings us to our murdering culprit: The Internet.

The Internet has rendered the music video biz completely unfit for television. At the same time, the Internet has given a rebirth to what would have been the death of music videos. With that said, I can make the bigger point that television, in general, has evolved into something that has surpassed a music combination. MTV is dead. So is VH1 and any other music television station. It’s unfortunate, but the only good things left on television are comedic sitcoms and awesome dramas like Mad Men. Music has switched mediums and its main candidate is the Internet.

But dealing with this change is becoming easier as days progressed. I feel America has realized the MTV is truly dead and is only for shitty “reality” shows like Jersey Shore. The online campaign for music video rebirth has made decent headway.

The attempts on making glorified and intense videos have also been a recent defibrillator to the stopped heart of the music video industry. Artists like Kanye West and Lady Gaga continue to make movie-like videos that are longer than the actual tracks on their albums. Kayne’s “Runaway” video almost breached the half-hour mark in length. Although it seems a bit much, and contained a little too much Kayne flavor personally, it was a good kick start to music videos everywhere. Gaga’s “Telephone” video ran along the same lines.

The main issue is that bands and artists don’t tend to take the time to make videos anymore. Hopefully, the actions of Mr. West and Ms. Gaga, as well as numerous other groups and artists will spark the flame that seems to be going out.

Nostalgia hits hard sometimes. I miss OutKast videos. I miss Blink 182 videos. Television needs those kinds of shenanigans again. Not these garbage “reality” shows. I suppose it’s a ridiculous wish, but I just miss old MTV. Bring back the music videos.