On August 1, 1981, MTV, a new cable channel intended to bring music videos to the world, launched and for a few short years, did exactly what its name entailed. Of course, that all went to hell when music started sucking as hair metal came in, then the network started making awful reality shows and got rid of music altogether. But for a short time, MTV was the coolest thing around.

Above you see an embedded playlist that roughly recreates the first hour or so of MTV from forty-one years ago. Some of the videos were hard to track down, and some have unwanted subtitles, but you will get to see The Buggles, Pat Benetar, Rod Stewart, The Who, The Pretenders and the other bands that helped launch Music Television, along with the very first moments as broadcast on August 1, 1981.

I shared this a few years ago but since tomorrow is the anniversary it was time to dig it out and polish it up for you again.  It’s hard to believe that some people who weren’t born yet when this aired are grandparents now.