So far we’ve talked a fair bit about the history and the importance of music videos on MTV, as for almost all of the timespan we’re covering that was the place where you needed to be in order to make it, especially when it came to international popularity. However, in 2005 a new portal appeared in the world that would change the possibilities to become famous forever.
Originally intended to be a dating platform (hello, Facebook) where you could upload a short presentation of yourself, YouTube soon opened it’s field for all kinds of videos, and different to the first online video-sharing site (Vimeo) it grew rapidly right from the beginning. Suddenly it was possible to post your videos and become a) independent of the whims of MTV’s board and VJs and b) able to create content at much cheaper rates.
Early adapters of the new site were OK Go, who managed to score what might just be the first music video going viral with “Here It Goes Again”. It features a complicated choreography by Trish Sie, the sister of lead singer Damian Kulash, on treadmills that took seventeen takes to film, out of which in only three the band managed to stay on the routine. Its home-made, unprofessional look yet everything falling into place is mirrored in today’s viral TikToks, but at the time this was something never seen before (well, maybe apart from this video). It soon became the most watched video of all YouTube and would eventually win a Grammy.
I would guess not many people remember the actual music these days, but if you were on the interwebs back then I bet you do remember the video.
They originally wanted to call the song “The Treadmill Song” but decided against it, in order not to confuse people who hadn’t seen the video. In hindsight they need not have bothered…