Now I know what some you youngsters out there are saying: Matty G, what's a music video? Well kids, a long long LONG time ago MTV stood for "Music Tele-Vision," and they would take popular songs and play them while showing pretty pictures, usually of the band or women in little-to-no-clothing. Yes, children, it was a very different time.
Sorry, I kind of got off on a rant there. But yes, TRL... TRL achieved its biggest amount of popularity around 1999-2000, when my generation was forced to endure through the simultaneous popularity of both boy-band/girl-group pop superstars (Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Spice Girls) and rap-rock/nu-metal (Limp Bizkit, Korn, Godsmack... and yes, I am sad to admit that at one time I was a very big fan of all three of these bands). Hundreds of thousands of people would flock outside the MTV studio in hopes of catching a glimpse of their favorite superstar. And it had the perfect host, Carson Daly, who ended up becoming almost as famous as many of the people he interviewed on the show. But eventually Mr. Daly left to pursue the job of hosting a terrible late-night show, and over time TRL began declining in popularity. MTV tried to bump up the ratings by continually bringing in new pretty young hosts to reinvigorate the show, but the times were a-changing, and, as a writer points out on MTV's own website, once websites like YouTube came along TRL became practically obsolete.
So now TRL is leaving us. MTV has maintained that they aren't canceling it, just "allowing it to rest," and that it could always come back someday. But regardless if it ever resurfaces or not I know all of you my age who grew up with "Total Request Live" and Carson Daly are feeling a little ping of sadness in the bowels of your heart. I understand.
Now if only MTV could do the same with the rest of their programming and replace them with music videos instead...
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