Club MTV
Encyclopedia
Club MTV was a half hour television show molded after American Bandstand
that aired on MTV
between the years 1985 and 1992. Club MTV was part of MTV's second generation of programming when they were phasing out the original 5 VJs and introducing new ones.
(Kevin Seal hosted the pilot) at The Palladium
a large dance club in New York City, the show cut back and forth between teenagers dancing to a hit dance song and the video of that hit. In later shows they would dance exclusively to freestyle music
. Often there were musical guests who performed their new singles; such guests included Paula Abdul
, Exposé
, Jody Watley
, Debbie Harry
, Vanessa Williams
, Salt-n-Pepa
, MC Hammer
, Deee-lite
, Pet Shop Boys
, E.U., Vanilla Ice
, Samantha Fox
, Soul II Soul
, Black Box
, Company B
, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
With the rise in popularity of Freestyle music, Club MTV began using the music nearly exclusively with a few house
and hip hop
songs thrown in. In 1989, MTV introduced a companion show for Friday nights called Street Party that aired the complete videos of songs used on Club MTV.
Though molded after American Bandstand, the show had a more sophisticated, nightclub look. The women especially, many of them aspiring models, dressed in provocative clubwear—skintight dresses, Spandex pants, miniskirts, fishnet stockings—and the show became known for its sexual allure. In an MTV special broadcast in the fall of 1999 on some of the network's more scandalous moments, Rob Fox, casting director for Club MTV during its first year, had this to say: "Club MTV was supposed to be a teen dance show, but in a channel run by men it turned into a show that was pretty much 'Table-dance Afternoon.'" In the book MTV Uncensored (NY: Pocket Books, 2001), Fox goes on to say he was also "the panty monitor. We had a set of rules that any woman or girl dancing on the platform had to wear panties, because of the infamous up-skirt shows of Club MTV. Someone, I'm sure, somewhere, has a director's reel of boobs falling out of low-cut dresses and shots. I would get on the headsets: 'Rob, uh, we really need you to take that girl off the platform because I can see her hairstyle and I'm not talking about her head.'"
, Paula Abdul, Milli Vanilli and Tone Loc. But the tour was marred with troubles. On the first tour, singer Cathy Dennis
who was booked for six weeks suddenly dropped out after three days publicly accusing one of the members of Milli Vanilli
, the tour's headline act, of sexual harassment. In addition Milli Vanilli was permitted by tour promoters to lip sync to pre-recorded tracks. One night a track began to skip midway through the song "Girl You Know It's True
" while the show was being taped for broadcast. Later that year when it was revealed that neither Fab Morvan nor Rob Piatus had performed on their album but the vocals had been recorded by other various studio singers, MTV was suspected of knowing that Milli Vanilli was a fraud all along. Tour promoters countered that lip-syncing was a common practice because of the exhausting dance routines artists did while performing.
During the 1992 tour, several acts dropped out midway through their bookings forcing MTV to book new acts at the last minute. With most of the Freestyle acts no longer interested in the tour, MTV wound up booking hip hop
and rap acts to replace them.
A few months after Club MTV was cancelled, a similar dance show debuted on the channel called The Grind
. Much like Club MTV the show cut back and forth between teenagers dancing and the song's music video, the difference being most of the music used on The Grind was hip hop and rap. While the videos for rap and hip hop acts were shown on each episode, whenever dance hits were used their videos were not shown.
In 1997, VH1 debuted Dance Machine
, a show notorious for showing regular pop acts instead of acts on the dance charts. The same year, MTV announced they would be replacing one hour of their morning hip hop show MTV Jams
with a new dance video show, this in response to complaints by their viewers. But after three days the show was cancelled. Viewers complained that the show actually featured one real dance video an hour while the rest were the same as was always shown in the MTV Jams time slot. Later that month, MTV had a special episode of 12 Angry Viewers
where contestants were given four videos to choose the worst on MTV and Gina G
's Ooh Aah... Just A Little Bit
won. The dance video was never actually shown on MTV before and the tape was taken and destroyed at the end of the show so that MTV would never air it again.
Dance finally returned to MTV in the form of the show AMP
. But the style was limited to Electronica
and the show rarely aired earlier than 2 am. When AMP was moved to MTV2
it was soon renamed MTV2 Dance Videos but mainly aired the same Electronica videos. Another MTV2 show called Monster Mix edited a number of videos together mash
style and sometimes had an episode with pure dance videos, both classic and new.
On March 20, 2005, VH1 Classic
aired a marathon of old Club MTV episodes with a promise that the show would return in the future.
currently has no plans to release the music show on DVD at this time.
American Bandstand
American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...
that aired on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
between the years 1985 and 1992. Club MTV was part of MTV's second generation of programming when they were phasing out the original 5 VJs and introducing new ones.
Background and format
Hosted by Downtown Julie BrownDowntown Julie Brown
Julie Dorne Brown, also known as Downtown Julie Brown , is an English actress and former MTV VJ.Of mixed race, Brown's father, Valentine Brown, was Jamaican and her mother, Doreen, is white...
(Kevin Seal hosted the pilot) at The Palladium
Palladium (music venue)
The Palladium was a concert hall and later a nightclub in New York City. It was located on the south side of East 14th Street, between Irving Place and 3rd Avenue....
a large dance club in New York City, the show cut back and forth between teenagers dancing to a hit dance song and the video of that hit. In later shows they would dance exclusively to freestyle music
Freestyle music
Freestyle or Latin freestyle, sometimes referred to as Latin hip hop, is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in the early 1980s. Mostly popular during the mid 80s to the early 90s...
. Often there were musical guests who performed their new singles; such guests included Paula Abdul
Paula Abdul
Paula Julie Abdul is an American singer-songwriter, dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality.In the 1980s, Abdul rose from cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers to highly sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era before scoring a string of pop music-R&B hits...
, Exposé
Expose
Expose, exposé, or exposed may refer to:-Technology:* Exposé , a window management tool for Mac OS X** Exposé clone, computer software which mimics the Mac OS X feature-Music:...
, Jody Watley
Jody Watley
Jody Vanessa Watley is an American, singer, songwriter, record producer, and founder of Avitone Records whose music crosses genres from Pop, R&B, Jazz, Dance and Electronic Soul....
, Debbie Harry
Debbie Harry
Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers...
, Vanessa Williams
Vanessa L. Williams
Vanessa Lynn Williams is an American pop-R&B recording artist, producer, dancer, model, actress and showgirl. In 1983, she became the first woman of African-American descent to be crowned Miss America, but a scandal generated by her having posed for nude photographs published in Penthouse magazine...
, Salt-n-Pepa
Salt-N-Pepa
Salt-N-Pepa is an American hip hop trio from Queens and Brooklyn, New York, that was formed in 1985. The group, consisting of Cheryl "Salt" Renee James, Sandra "Pepa" Denton, and Deidra "DJ Spinderella" Roper, was one of the first all-female rap crews....
, MC Hammer
MC Hammer
Stanley Kirk Burrell , better known by his stage name MC Hammer , is an American rapper, entertainer, business entrepreneur, dancer and actor. He had his greatest commercial success and popularity from the late 1980s until the mid-1990s...
, Deee-lite
Deee-Lite
Deee-Lite was an American house and club/dance group, formed in New York City, United States. The group's best-known single was "Groove Is in the Heart", from their 1990 debut album, World Clique. However, Deee-Lite achieved longer lasting success on the U.S...
, Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys
Pet Shop Boys are an English electronic dance music duo, consisting of Neil Tennant, who provides main vocals, keyboards and occasional guitar, and Chris Lowe on keyboards....
, E.U., Vanilla Ice
Vanilla Ice
Robert Matthew Van Winkle , best known by his stage name Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper, extreme athlete and home improvement television personality...
, Samantha Fox
Samantha Fox
Samantha Karen "Sam" Fox is an English dance-pop singer, actress, and former glamour model. In 1983, at the age of 16, she began her topless modeling career on Page Three of The Sun, and went on to become a popular pin-up girl...
, Soul II Soul
Soul II Soul
Soul II Soul are a British group that was created in London in 1988. They are best known for their 1989 UK chart-topper and U.S. Top 5 hit, "Back to Life ".-Career:...
, Black Box
Black box
A black box is a device, object, or system whose inner workings are unknown; only the input, transfer, and output are known characteristics.The term black box can also refer to:-In science and technology:*Black box theory, a philosophical theory...
, Company B
Company B
Company B may refer to:*Company B - a dance-pop trio.**Company B , Company B's 1987 debut album.*Company B - a theatre company.Company B - A marketing and Public Relations firm in Milwaukee, WI...
, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
With the rise in popularity of Freestyle music, Club MTV began using the music nearly exclusively with a few house
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
and hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
songs thrown in. In 1989, MTV introduced a companion show for Friday nights called Street Party that aired the complete videos of songs used on Club MTV.
Though molded after American Bandstand, the show had a more sophisticated, nightclub look. The women especially, many of them aspiring models, dressed in provocative clubwear—skintight dresses, Spandex pants, miniskirts, fishnet stockings—and the show became known for its sexual allure. In an MTV special broadcast in the fall of 1999 on some of the network's more scandalous moments, Rob Fox, casting director for Club MTV during its first year, had this to say: "Club MTV was supposed to be a teen dance show, but in a channel run by men it turned into a show that was pretty much 'Table-dance Afternoon.'" In the book MTV Uncensored (NY: Pocket Books, 2001), Fox goes on to say he was also "the panty monitor. We had a set of rules that any woman or girl dancing on the platform had to wear panties, because of the infamous up-skirt shows of Club MTV. Someone, I'm sure, somewhere, has a director's reel of boobs falling out of low-cut dresses and shots. I would get on the headsets: 'Rob, uh, we really need you to take that girl off the platform because I can see her hairstyle and I'm not talking about her head.'"
The Club MTV Tour
Late in 1989, MTV launched their first Club MTV Tour featuring Was (Not Was)Was (Not Was)
-Studio albums:-Compilation albums:-Singles:-Contributions:* A Christmas Record - "Christmas Time In The Motor City"* That's The Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk - "Ba-Lue-Bolivar-Ba-Lues-Are"...
, Paula Abdul, Milli Vanilli and Tone Loc. But the tour was marred with troubles. On the first tour, singer Cathy Dennis
Cathy Dennis
Cathy Dennis is a British dance-oriented pop singer-songwriter, record producer and actress...
who was booked for six weeks suddenly dropped out after three days publicly accusing one of the members of Milli Vanilli
Milli Vanilli
Milli Vanilli was a pop/dance music project formed by Frank Farian in Germany in 1988, visually fronted by Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. The group's debut album achieved international success and earned them a Grammy Award for Best New Artist on Feb. 21, 1990. Milli Vanilli became one of the most...
, the tour's headline act, of sexual harassment. In addition Milli Vanilli was permitted by tour promoters to lip sync to pre-recorded tracks. One night a track began to skip midway through the song "Girl You Know It's True
Girl You Know It's True
Girl You Know It's True is a 1989 album that was the U.S. debut of pop group Milli Vanilli.In 1989, the majority of songs from Milli Vanilli's Europe-only release All or Nothing were repackaged and retitled Girl You Know It's True...
" while the show was being taped for broadcast. Later that year when it was revealed that neither Fab Morvan nor Rob Piatus had performed on their album but the vocals had been recorded by other various studio singers, MTV was suspected of knowing that Milli Vanilli was a fraud all along. Tour promoters countered that lip-syncing was a common practice because of the exhausting dance routines artists did while performing.
During the 1992 tour, several acts dropped out midway through their bookings forcing MTV to book new acts at the last minute. With most of the Freestyle acts no longer interested in the tour, MTV wound up booking hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
and rap acts to replace them.
MTV and VH1 blacklist dance music
In 1992, MTV suddenly canceled both Street Party and Club MTV with no explanation; however MTV executives made some subtle hints that it was in response to the many dance acts dropping out of the Club MTV tour. From that moment on, MTV and VH1 showed a noticeable aversion towards dance videos. Many popular dance artists who up until then had several videos air on MTV were no longer able to get their new videos into rotation. This also marked the time that MTV began to elevate rap and hip hop acts on the channel.A few months after Club MTV was cancelled, a similar dance show debuted on the channel called The Grind
The Grind (TV series)
The Grind was a Dance music show broadcast on the cable television station MTV between 1992 and 1997.It replaced Club MTV, and featured people dancing to music tracks in a studio, linked by various hosts, including Eric Nies and DJ Jackie Christie. While Club MTV was mostly Dance, House and...
. Much like Club MTV the show cut back and forth between teenagers dancing and the song's music video, the difference being most of the music used on The Grind was hip hop and rap. While the videos for rap and hip hop acts were shown on each episode, whenever dance hits were used their videos were not shown.
In 1997, VH1 debuted Dance Machine
VH1 Dance Machine
VH1 Dance Machine was a half hour music video program on VH1 shown between 1997 and 1998. It was also known as Dance Machine and VH1 Dance.-Overview:Originally, Dance Machine was shown in an hour block with The RuPaul Show...
, a show notorious for showing regular pop acts instead of acts on the dance charts. The same year, MTV announced they would be replacing one hour of their morning hip hop show MTV Jams
MTV Jams
MTV Jams is a Viacom-owned American hip-hop/urban music video channel that debuted on 1998 as MTVX, then was relaunched in 2002 under its current name...
with a new dance video show, this in response to complaints by their viewers. But after three days the show was cancelled. Viewers complained that the show actually featured one real dance video an hour while the rest were the same as was always shown in the MTV Jams time slot. Later that month, MTV had a special episode of 12 Angry Viewers
12 Angry Viewers
12 Angry Viewers was a television show in the United States on MTV which aired from 1997 to 1998. The title is a play of title of the movie 12 Angry Men. Its first host was Jancee Dunn, with Ananda Lewis replacing her later on.-Premise:...
where contestants were given four videos to choose the worst on MTV and Gina G
Gina G
-Albums:*1997 Fresh! — #12 UK #40 Norway.*1998 Gina G Remix Album *2005 Get Up & Dance -Singles:...
's Ooh Aah... Just A Little Bit
Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit
"Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit" is a song written by British songwriters Simon Tauber and Steve Rodway, and performed by Australian singer Gina G. Released as a single on 25 March 1996, it reached number one in the United Kingdom on 19 May 1996....
won. The dance video was never actually shown on MTV before and the tape was taken and destroyed at the end of the show so that MTV would never air it again.
Dance finally returned to MTV in the form of the show AMP
Amp (TV series)
Amp was a music video program on MTV that aired from 1997 to 2001. It was aimed at the electronic music and rave crowd and was responsible for exposing many electronica acts to the mainstream. When co-creator Todd Mueller left the show in 1998, it was redubbed Amp 2.0. The show aired some 46...
. But the style was limited to Electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
and the show rarely aired earlier than 2 am. When AMP was moved to MTV2
MTV2
MTV2 is a cable network that is widely available in the United States on digital cable and satellite television, and is progressively being added to analogue cable lineups across the nation...
it was soon renamed MTV2 Dance Videos but mainly aired the same Electronica videos. Another MTV2 show called Monster Mix edited a number of videos together mash
Mashup (music)
A mashup or bootleg is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another...
style and sometimes had an episode with pure dance videos, both classic and new.
On March 20, 2005, VH1 Classic
VH1 Classic
VH1 Classic is a television network, launched on May 8, 2000. It is operated as part of MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom and primarily features music videos and concert footage from the 1970s through the mid-1990s, though it formerly included a wider range of genres and time periods...
aired a marathon of old Club MTV episodes with a promise that the show would return in the future.
DVD releases
MTV NetworksMTV Networks
MTV Networks is a division of media conglomerate Viacom that oversees the operations of many television channels and Internet brands, including the original MTV channel in the United States...
currently has no plans to release the music show on DVD at this time.
See also
- VH1 Dance MachineVH1 Dance MachineVH1 Dance Machine was a half hour music video program on VH1 shown between 1997 and 1998. It was also known as Dance Machine and VH1 Dance.-Overview:Originally, Dance Machine was shown in an hour block with The RuPaul Show...
- The GrindThe Grind (TV series)The Grind was a Dance music show broadcast on the cable television station MTV between 1992 and 1997.It replaced Club MTV, and featured people dancing to music tracks in a studio, linked by various hosts, including Eric Nies and DJ Jackie Christie. While Club MTV was mostly Dance, House and...
- Electric CircusElectric CircusElectric Circus, aka EC, was a Canadian live dance music television program aired on MuchMusic and Citytv. It aired from September 16, 1988 until December 12, 2003....
- The Party Machine featuring Nia PeeplesNia PeeplesVirenia Gwendolyn "Nia" Peeples is an American R&B and dance music singer and actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Nicole Chapman on Fame...
- Dance Party USADance Party USADance Party USA is an American dance television show that aired on cable's USA Network from April 12, 1986, to June 27, 1992. It was originally a half-hour, but was expanded to an hour in 1987....
- AMPAmp (TV series)Amp was a music video program on MTV that aired from 1997 to 2001. It was aimed at the electronic music and rave crowd and was responsible for exposing many electronica acts to the mainstream. When co-creator Todd Mueller left the show in 1998, it was redubbed Amp 2.0. The show aired some 46...
- Camille DonatacciCamille DonatacciCamille Grammer is an American television personality, starring in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills...
(a regular dancer on the show) - Party to Go CDsParty to GoMTV Party To Go is a series of dance music albums released by Tommy Boy Records from 1991 to 2001. The first album in the series was titled Club MTV Party To Go Volume One and the only release to have 'Club' in its title. The albums were numbered up to Volume 10. After Volume 10, MTV Party to Go...