If you grew up in the MTV era, you probably had a favorite show outside of aimless watching music videos. 120 Minutes planted the seeds in my wanting to know more about the artists, albums and songs. Sad to hear the passing of Dave Kendall - creator and former host of the show.
“At the beginning it was pure chaos,” he said in a SiriusXM documentary video on the show. “I wanted to play music that I thought was cool and original, but the programming department wanted to include all the videos that were in light rotation, folks like Michael Barnes and Jermaine Jackson. Regardless, Kendall was hired and his vision won out, and he made the show happen his way. The MTV management team realized he was onto something, and artists from Sonic Youth to the Mighty Lemon Drops and beyond received big looks on the show at a time when there was no email or internet, let alone social media and YouTube, and few televised outlets for that type of music.
Originally its producer, Kendall hosted the show from 1989 until 1992 — ironically, just as the genres of music he’d championed were reaching peak popularity — and worked as a DJ and video host for SiriusXM and a number of outlets.