With so many musical resources on the Web, it's easy to forget about those two television trailblazers that brought video music to the small screen so many years ago. But, true to pop-culture-pioneering form, both MTV and VH1 have taken their music video and media-heavy material on-line. And neither one disappoints.
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MTV site is in a class all to itself, featuring everything from constantly-updated pages for each of its shows to links to the best new music to the latest music news coming through as events break. The site also features a great chat room, its only caveat being that most of the room's inhabitants haven't yet gotten their driver's licenses. Hey, that's where the cutting-edge stuff happens, right?
Another feature of the site is that it has a link to literally all things MTV -- from its programming to its artists to its famed MTV "personalities." The site offers a "Casting Call" page, so aspiring VJ's and the like can audition for coveted places on MTV's new lineup. And if nothing else, you can do on the site what you can no longer do on MTV itself: watch videos all day long.
MTV was the musical vanguard when it arrived on the music/television scene in 1981, and its arrival on the Web is no different. Visitors can view the news in text form or watch Kurt Loder himself on Real Video. The graphics on the page, too, are first-rate, and the news is of the you-heard-it-here-first variety. In short, MTV created the concept and now it's just using the Web to take it up a notch.
VH1, on the other hand, is a little more prone to following in MTV's footsteps, and its Web site is in the same pattern. The site is graphically interesting, if a little less so than MTV's. VH1's pages are also informative, again a little less so than MTV's. But the site is geared for an older audience than MTV's is, and this may explain its less- revolutionary style.
The crux of VH1's Web site is its popular "Behind the Music" program. You can find links to the featured artist that take you all over the Web, and can listen to interviews or music. The "VH1 at Work" page lets you download RealPlayer, with the understanding that you'll be using it to stay tuned to VH1 while you're punching the clock. The best feature of the site is its "Tours First" page, which links you to all the best tours and allows you to buy tickets to your hometown dates. Overall, the site is just like the station: sort of like MTV's big brother.
So when you're out their surfing through the extensive musical resources available to you on-line, don't forget the two paragons of musical enlightenment who brought you twenty-four hour music in the first place: MTV Online and VH1 Online.
