Pink Floyd and MTV's Senior Moments

"Out of Touch!" This one sentence alone sums up how disconnected from music, music fans, and more MTV's increasingly top-heavy bureaucracy has become (especially, Van Toffler MTV's president). Perhaps MTV never truly cared about the music but in the past they at least showed some videos. MTV, Vh1, and the other mainstream music channels have become alienated with viewers and increasingly the public at large.

There are bright spots such as occasional programming on CMT and Fuse. You're about to tell me that CMT has nothing to offer. But you would be wrong: Interesting intersections of different music styles like the recent Los Loney Boys and Ronnie Milsap collaborations, Crossroads, and programming more Americana and Alt-Country open up potential more fans to an interesting form of music that combines elements of rock, country, rockabilly, and folk in a form that some have described as "Twangcore."

And then there was a much beloved band like for all of its prog rock excess still have people buying their music, Pink Floyd, playing at the Live8 concert. And vacuous MTV VJs are talking all over once in a life time performances. And they remain surprised:

"Many of MTV's viewers weren't even alive when Pink Floyd broke up, so Toffler said he was surprised at how many wanted to see the band's reunion performance in full."



Yeah, right...young boys/girls and men/women do not still buy Pink Floyd records, or wear T-shirts, or download their songs! I am stunned and nearly speechless... Alright, not literally speechless but you know what I mean. Pink Floyd in either the Waters or Waterless configurations always made money on tours years after they stopped making vital records.

In my work and at my daughter's school, I have noticed that very bright high school juniors and seniors, as well as hip college students, live and breathe music. Several different kinds of music, at that. If I hear one more Pink Floyd song pumping from their cars or these days laptop computers I think I'm going to get comfortably numb myself, and I LOVE Pink Floyd.

How can MTV and its president be this out of touch? It's mind boggling until you remember that it is not about the music for them, its about business.