From the Box to YouTube, How Music Videos Have Evolved

After reading Herb Kent's book, "The Cool Gent: The Nine Lives of Radio Legend Herb Kent," I learned a lot more about black radio. And while reading about his memories, I thought of my own radio memories. But as an '80s baby, the song wasn't complete without the music video to match it. And over the decades, music video delivery has been through some ups and downs.

The Chicago radio station 106.3 "106 Jamz" was the most popular radio station to listen to during my elementary school days at Fort Dearborn. But in addition to radio, for my generation, it was almost mandatory to study and be able to converse about the latest music videos to go with those radio songs. The thought of doing one without the other was unheard of. Music videos went from looking generic in the '70s to mini-movies in the '80s and '90s (ex. Busta Rhymes and Janet Jackson's "What's It Gonna Be?") Those were the days when MTV remembered "Music" was the first word in their abbreviated name, and BET used "Entertainment" to show music videos as well.

I owned approximately 20 cassette tapes that were later converted to 10 DVDs full of 3- and 4-minute music videos, from DaBrat's "Give It to You" featuring MC Lyte, Immature's "Never Lie (Remix)" all the way to present day videos like Jay-Z's "On to the Next One." Most of the older hip hop videos and R&B videos were from "Yo! MTV Raps" and "Video Soul."

When 106 Jamz hip hop station was eliminated, Chicago's WGCI (107.5), B96 (96.3) and WPWX (92.3) became more popular to my group of friends. And when nothing was on the radio and MTV and BET were showing the news or talk shows (remember those days when the news was a regular part of these stations instead of reality shows?), that's when I turned to Video Jukebox Network (nicknamed The Box). MTV and BET were playing videos, but they were playing the videos that they wanted and sometimes repeatedly. With The Box, we could call a 900-number, choose the videos we wanted to see and camp out in front of the television until they came on. There were always some negotiations with parents to be able to call this 900-number, which usually involved a clean room, good grades and the parents monitoring us kids to make sure we didn't call the wrong 900-number. The pleasure in seeing the video we paid $1.99 for was worth it.

But around 1999, The Box was bought by MTV, and then we couldn't get the videos we wanted on demand. BET and MTV became obsessed with reality shows, dating shows, bad movies and television on syndication. "106 and Park" with Free and A.J. (now Rocsi and Terrence) is okay, but the videos are notoriously cut short. So imagine the satisfaction of an '80s baby who loves music videos to find out about YouTube's creation in 2005.

That Internet Web site is the answer to it all. Of course there are music Internet stations like ProjectPlaylist.com, Imeem.com and MySpace Music where Internet users can add songs, but YouTube gives video music lovers the ability to hear the songs, and see videos as old or as new as we like without the commercial breaks, annoying advertising, deejays talking over the music and shortened videos. I can watch a Marvin Gaye video and then check out the latest Mos Def video by choice, not by just walking in at the right moment. As much as I miss pop icon Michael Jackson, I can sit on Michael Jackson's YouTube video channel and watch his videos all day (and if I'm in a TV mood, watch reruns of "A Different World" since the second through seventh seasons never released).

YouTube is the answer to all my media entertainment needs--music, video and TV all wrapped into one. And although I don't know if I love radio as much as "Herbie baby," I sure can say I love YouTube and music videos that much.