Farewell to music on MTV: it's the end of an era (even if that era really finished a long time ago)

Last week, news broke that after nearly 40 years of broadcasting, MTV will be shutting down all of its music channels across Europe on New Year’s Eve. While this isn’t particularly surprising to hear, for those of a certain age, it’s a sad moment.

For those of us that can remember its heyday, MTV played a pivotal role in helping many of us discover the music that we went on to love. I didn’t grow up with satellite television, so it was always during trips to my friends' houses that I would get the chance to experience MTV live. I still vividly recall a half-term break watching MTV for hours, where in between videos by the likes of Take That and Michael Jackson, they casually chucked in Alice in Chains’ Again promo.

It was a mind-blowing moment: my first exposure to Alice In Chains, and on a mid-week lunch time! Seeing a caged Layne Stayley sneering at me over Jerry Cantrell’s crunching guitar tone led me to go out and buy the band's self-titled album the very next day.

Soon I was knocking on my mates’ doors every evening and weekend, hoping we could just slump down and consume endless music videos. I got lucky again on a fair few occassions: a Soundgarden special on a Saturday morning, White Zombie closing the MTV Video Awards, German rap-metal crew H-Blockx playing live at the European Awards on a weekday (I was watching when I really should have been studying for my GCSEs).

Sure, I saw Peter Andre’s Mysterious Girl video more times than I would have liked, but it was a small price to pay. The best way to avoid Andre and his ilk was via MTV’s specialist shows; Headbangers Ball, Alternative Nation or 120 Minutes. In 1994, nearly half of my school year had crammed into the tiny living room in my mum’s house to watch a taped copy of MTV’s first broadcast of Nirvana’s Unplugged concert. Soon I was shoving VHS tapes into the hands of friends, with instructions to record every late night, alternative or rock-centric shows on the channel.

The first two tapes I got back gave me moments of musical magic that have stayed with me to this very day. One was a Headbangers Ball special that followed Megadeth on their US tour, with support from (how's this for a bill?!) Korn, Fear Factory and Flotsam and Jetsam. There were interviews, live footage and a bunch of videos chosen by the artists. Already amazing! But it was the show closing with Morbid Angel’s Where the Slime Live video that has really stuck with me. Yep, MTV gave me my first exposure to death metal.

The second tape was an episode of Alternative Nation. In amongst songs by artists that I already knew and loved such as The Stone Roses and Green Day, there were unheard gems by Rocket from the Crypt, The Prodigy’s Breathe video and a song called Raison by a French, Helmet-esque groove metal band called Aston Villa, who I have Googled about a million times since and never found any evidence of. I still wonder what happened to them.

The thing that really blew my mind, though, was when the video for Marilyn Manson’s The Beautiful People came along. I’m not too keen to puff him up these days, but seeing his face leering back at me on my TV screen as that sandpaper-rough riff cut through the speakers was genuinely thrilling and terrifying. It's a moment that still lives vividly in my head.

As the years went on, the tapes kept coming, and MTV, along with my tastes, changed. Headbangers Ball was replaced by the inferior but still decent Super Rock (a show mostly remembered for glamourous German presenter Julia Valet babbling non sequiturs in a mock hotel room), the alternative-specific MTV2 was launched and rock videos on music TV were easier to come by than ever. It was a golden era.

It’s one that’s long gone now, though; perhaps that's why the decision to axe the channels doesn’t feel shocking in 2025. Young people are still discovering rock and metal, but where I found it from Vanessa Warwick on Headbangers Ball, they’re now finding it on TikTok. It’s a different world - not better, not worse, just different.

Still, when my generation needed it, MTV provided. Not just for the pop fans, the hip hop heads and the ravers: it also gave us rockers plenty to be grateful for.