![]() ![]() Nesmith performing his song Different Drum that was an early hit for a very young Linda Ronstadt.īut his biggest contribution to popular culture was the development of the modern music video. The idea that rock music could be the basis not only of movies but of popular television programming was firmly established by The Monkees, but in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Nesmith took the concept a giant step further.įollowing his stint with The Monkees, he wrote songs for a number of stars, including Linda Ronstadt, produced the cult classic film Repo Man, won a Grammy award, started a successful home video company, and wrote at least one novel. Be that as it may, the four performers were primarily picked as actors for a television show about a rock bank from out of the 440 who appeared for an audition in 1965. ![]() At the time, Nesmith was generally considered to be the only “real” musician, something Nesmith later disputed. Nesmith, along with Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and Mickey Dolenz, made up The Monkees, the world’s first “manufactured” rock band. But few know that the idea of MTV and music videos has its roots in the work of a musician and video visionary named Michael Nesmith in the 1960s and 1970s. Music trivia fans know that the Buggles’s song “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first video to be played on MTV when the cable service was launched on August 1, 1981. I’ve made a couple of corrections to the text to account for the passage of time. Here’s what I wrote about him back in 2003 for what I think must have been the first edition of my textbook. I just saw this afternoon that singer/songwriter/music video pioneer Michael Nesmith had died of natural causes today at age 78. ![]() He made one of the rock era's first music videos and won the first Grammy Award for video. Michael Nesmith, the contemplative, wool-cap-wearing member of the Monkees, has died at 78. ![]()
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