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MTV & Me



So MTV closed their music channels at the end of "2025", after more than 4 decades on air. They now exist as memories and will live on as archival reference to what "humanity's pop culture had lost".

And while my youth was fed on radio and bootleg cassette tapes, it was the advent of MTV that flooded and overloading my senses beyond what the written&drawn page did, and narrative television had been over-wrought with, as music flowed through my ears, clashing with the visual influx into my brain space. It was glorious.

I am of the "mixtape" generation, where multiple tracks on a single cassette provide me a sample menu of songs and artists I liked, that I could branch off to seek and follow, instead of being shackled down to a sole artists song on a album, and the nature of MTV was like a "24-hour mixtape"!

It might not have been the "most important" part of my life, but it had a influence over my adult life more than I might attempt to give it credit for ... here are some memorable timeline crossovers...

The most vivid memory of first watching the MTV (Asia) channel, was when I worked as a Set Designer in the then Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS, before they changed to "Mediacorp").

The google-box permanently housed at the front of the office facing our work-desks were either on the HBO-channel, or on MTV, which my eyes and attention were constantly trying to NOT stayed glued on, as I navigated constant self-induced over-night designing tasks.



"MTV Southeast Asia was officially launched on 5 May 1995 (at 8pm Singapore Time) as a 24-hour English-language music channel, broadcasting from Singapore and available across Southeast Asia, including territories such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.". (Wiki)

A standalone pay television service, unavailable to watch via free terrestrial channels in Singapore, hence the "freedom" of watching it in the office, was a pretty "big deal" to me.



One of my main dreams during that period, was to design the stage for their annual MTV Movie Awards! But alas I do not think I ever worked out how to head towards that goal, besides focusing on my own work lol

Although I did fulfil another aspect of my dreams subsequently: Working on feature films, with my first being a Art Director and Production Design on my second ("Forever Fever" and "The Teenage Textbook Movie", respectively), which also had me working on "music videos" somewhen down my path in the local media industry.



MTV was my literal companion and teacher, all those late nights. They both fuelled me professionally and sonically soothed if not constantly invigorated my soundtrack to life. I was able to have the opportunity to absorb and embrace anything and everything beyond "regular daily life", without having to live a MTV-charmed-life LOL

One main takeaway of music videos on MTV: Was when they credited the artist and songs at the beginning and end of their MVs - which was both literal education and pointer to be haunted down, and ingrained in me the importance of "being credited", which directly tied to my dayjob(s) then, and even til now.



The year was 1999, and I had already left said broadcasting station, when I had the opportunity to design a studio set for MTV Asia: "MTV LOADED", hosted by VJ Sonia Couling!



I had proposed a all-white set for "MTV LOADED", and wanted to go for a "futuristic" and hyper-clean aesthetic, with silver/metallic highlights = all of which were a forboden combination of things I ha\d been warned off of in said broadcasting station years before (white surfaces will glare out due to studio lighting, and metallic reflect both people and lights as well), and honestly, I believed they could still be done, and so I did.

I still have the design-drawings (All images in video above via #andyhengart), but have struggled through the years for any archival moving visuals/footage - which as of now - is absolutely none in public existence.





2004 saw a long-form 13-episoder tv series "ROUGE" produced in collaboration with MTV Asia, where I was both the Production Designer and on-set Art Director for. Inclusive were also "music videos" and other related projects to said-series. Seen here is the MV for "The Girl You Used to Know", one of the sole records of the show too.



There were at least three more songs we did/filmed "music videos" for (that were apart of the episodes), but they have become lost in time, but for a few still snaps I have kept thru the years.





This program "crossed over" to my toylife too, as I designed, styled and created the Opening Sequence of ROUGE with my personal 1/6th-scaled collection (More images HERE)! Absolute toy-joy in being able to marry both my professional worklife with my passion, and kudos for my boss for letting me "play" ... eerr I meant "create"...!

ROUGE OPENING 1:6 TOYS From TOYSREVIL



ROUGE starred:
Mariel Rodriguez was "Pam" (Bass)
Denise Laurel was "Pat" (Lead Vocals)
Desiree Ann Siahaan was "Ling" (Guitar)
Veronica Ngô / Ngô Thanh Vân was "Thuy" (Drums)
Pierre Png was "Hong"







I've always felt MTV was for the "cool kids", and I've never been one (as hard as I'd tried to be, a lifetime ago), and continue to be a outsider looking in, closest in this day and age now have just excavated a handful of temporary tattoos, which I tried to make available at my recent 1-Day flea market vending, to absolutely zero recognition now by the general public ... a memory of a time since lost in a generation or two whom have outgrown the channel's evolution into reality shows like every other channel hawking the same content(s). Basically I stopped watching because it was less about the music anymore. The exact date and time that happened did not matter, as "life" filled up the gap as soon as there was space left behind.

"In Singapore, the channel was discontinued on StarHub TV on 29 April 2022, following StarHub's review of its content offerings and the launch of MTV Asia On Demand." (Wiki)



Most recently I still remembered watching "MTV 90s" on cable channels, having it played throughout the day when I was at work at home too (no doubt a boom as it was COVID "work-from-home" period). And even then the feeling was different, as they became background-noise as I went about my day, once in a while stopping to reminisce the tracks I remembered hearing and loved.

Personally for me, "80s music" was about my youth and growing up, while "90s music" will inevitably be tied to my work and officially starting "adulting" plus paying taxes LOL







And while I might have left behind the notion of "MTV", via the TOYSREVIL-blog I had also glimpsed the memory of, with the advent of KAWS' Video Music Awards' trophy in 2013...! Not top mention QUICCS' and Wetworks' MTV-logo collectibles for Secret Fresh (2021)!





Now, as I attempt to reconnect my memories (while sticking to the "good" ones for this blog), we see western media covering the channel - familiar and yet not - and I feel alone yet again in my corner of the world, like those over-nighters when it was just me alone starring into the google-box... LOL





MTV Music's last song was "Video Killed The Radio Star", which apparently was the FIRST MV played when the channel launched, but I was not there to witness ... but here I am to witness it's end for tho.



And here were what other "last"-MVs were played ... there were not "singular" memories to be had, and that to me is one of the joys of "pop culture".











Celebrating the end of a "vessel", as iconic as it had been to pop culture, no doubt, but the "music" and memories remain, "non-stop"...!



Thank you for the music and memories, MTV.
Andy TOYSREVIL:
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