Well, there were a lot of repeats on the first day of MTV, but I guess that’s to be expected for the first day of any cable channel. (For a particularly heinous example, try the first week of the Sci-Fi channel — it was a handful of Paramount movies in heavy rotation, mostly “The Sword and the Sorcerer” and “Krull”.) And with all these repeats, two artists saw even more repeated airplay:

• Elvis Costello
• REO Speedwagon

Like The Pretenders, Elvis Costello’s music holds up very well after 25 years, also sounding somewhat timeless. REO Speedwagon’s music, OTOH, is almost completely forgettable. It took me around 3 viewings of “Ride The Storm Out” before I realized I’d already seen it.

Was watching all 24 hours worth it? No. It would have been worth it if it were really the first real 24 hours, VJs, commercials, and all. But it was cool to see the video for The Ramones’ “Rock And Roll High School”, which features Johnny Ramone in drag. 1981 was the height of the arcade coin-op craze, so I logged two instances of Space Invaders (The Buggles’ “A Plastic World” and something else I can’t remember) and also Super Road Champions (Nazareth ‘s “Holiday”). And Genesis’ “Turn It On” sounds better with each listen (the video, not the studio version — the video version is slightly faster and lengthier).