Forty Years of 120 Minutes

120 Minutes first aired on MTV on March 10, 1986. My social media feed was full of remembrances on this 40th anniversary, and I meant to say something myself. Then I got distracted and forgot. But those thoughts are still in my head, so I thought I’d get them out anyway.

I was born in the late 1970s, was raised in the 1980s, and came of age in the early 1990s. I grew up listening to hair metal bands like Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Bon Jovi, but I also dug pop stars like Tiffany, Madonna, and Michael Jackson. 

I was a shy, nerdy kid from rural Oklahoma; I didn’t have access to truly alternative bands. My brother was a lot cooler than me, and he turned me on to bands like R.E.M. and The Cure, but even then it was just their bigger songs.

Then Nirvana broke. That changed everything. Suddenly alternative was popular. I can’t remember now if I had watched 120 Minutes before “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was released or after. I probably knew about it before then because I was an MTV junkie, but I don’t think I tuned in every week.

But at some point it became a fixture in my life. Again, I was a shy, nerdy kid from rural Oklahoma. I had very few outlets for discovering alternative music. The local radio stations certainly didn’t play anything but popular music. 

I subscribed to Spin magazine and Alternative Press, and they were great at tuning me into new music, but that was only print; they didn’t give me any ways to actually listen. Sometimes I’d go to a Tulsa record shop and buy one of the records those magazines raved about, but I wasn’t rich, and that was taking an awful chance. There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned money on a record and finding you don’t like it.

Discovering 120 Minutes was like discovering the Holy Grail. Suddenly, every week amazing alternative music was being beamed into my living room. I could now listen to (and watch the cool videos) music I previously would have never been able to hear. It was amazing. 

Alternative music became more and more popular. One of the Tulsa radio stations became “The Edge” and played alternative tunes. MTV created a nightly show called Alternative Nation. Record  shops in the malls even had an alternative section right next to rock and roll and heavy metal.

But nothing ever beat 120 Minutes for me. It felt more real than all that other stuff. The Edge, Alternative Nation, and everything felt like they were hitching themselves to a bandwagon. 120 Minutes was there before alternative became cool.  You could tell the VJs really got the music and loved it.  I loved it too.