Geography, Difference and the Politics of Scale

Possibly in response to a book that subjected it to a ‘postmodernist’ analysis (Kaplan, 1987), Music Television (MTV) initiated a special feature entitled ‘Postmodern MTV’, but the differences between this and the rest of MTV are at best subtle. The postmodern version may be more artsy, European, introspective, fragmented, more dependent on pastiche and juxtaposition, more replete with graphics of space and time, perhaps even more political with distanced interjections of 1960s turmoil and a warmer embrace of glasnost fashions. And it may be studded with funkier adverts for 501 jeans but this hardly elevates it definitively beyond MTV’s staple fare. With one exception. Postmodern MTV is not heavy metal; heavy metal macho would seem to be the epitome of a decayed modernism in music, and it too occupies much of MTV’s airtime.