Listen to Dead Kennedys eviscerate MTV in a song
Formed in 1978, the Dead Kennedys were one of the most successful punk bands to emerge out of the US, famed for their aggressive output and politically charged songwriting. They favoured the venomous commentary of English punks like the Sex Pistols, unimpressed with the self-involved style of the New York musicians of the time.
The real genius of the Dead Kennedys was their ability to skewer anything from corrupt politicians to cringe-inducing pop stars – and their deft ability to rally against commercialisation is most biting on ‘M.T.V: Get off the Air’, a blistering satire that lambasted lazy musicianship and the lack of creativity in modern music.
When the song was released in 1985, MTV reported its music video channel had made a yearly profit of $11.9million, much to the frustration of Kennedy’s lead singer, Jello Biafra. He lashed out against the stifling effect this hand on music, with bands being more desperate to break it on MTV than to share a significant musical message.
The big-wigs in charge of MTV are accountants instead of music fans, Biafra insisted: “Forget honesty, forget creativity, the dumbest buy the mostest, that’s the name of the game”. But it’s not just the powers that be which he takes aim at, but the viewers at home. “Don’t create; be sedate,” he instructs, taking on the mantle of an MTV drone – “be a vegetable at home and thwack on that dial”. This sentiment of reminiscent of Frank Zappa’s ‘I’m The Slime’, which equally mocked the willingness of audiences to mindlessly tune into television.
The two share not only that anti-MTV sentiment but were both vocal critics of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), a group that campaigned for heightened censorship in music. The album that ‘M.T.V: Get of the Air’ appeared on, Frankenchrist, included a H.R. Giger print artfully named the Landscape XX (Penis Landscape).
The supposed morality of music was a hot-button issue at this time, and the inclusion of the artwork resulted in putting Jello Biafra on trial. The case not only wound up in a jury deadlock but effectively broke up the band. The attempted censorship makes Biafra’s line: “When you’re too goddamned conservative to take real chances,” even more barbed.
He explained his disdain for the music video channel in the book ‘MTV Ruled the World – The Early Years of Music Video’, saying it occurred to him that his band’s name alone meant MTV would never play their music anyway, so why not make fun of them on his album. “My stuff was never supposed to be cute, any more than it was supposed to be used in TV commercials or something like that,” he explains. “The purpose is to provoke, not to soothe.”
