Noelle Clemente
What constitutes an era? Is it ten songs five days a week for ten years? Or is it the innumerable stars that graced the Times Square studio? Or perhaps the hoards of teenagers who stood on Broadway Ave. every afternoon to maybe get the chance to see a star 4 stories up through a window?
Total Request Live has come to an end after ten years on MTV. The show has lost steam since it first aired in 1998, but it still remains to be nearly the only music left on Music Television.
TRL was not only a music countdown it was an outlet. Musicians debuted songs, promoted albums, and could be themselves. Teens from all around could have a voice in what is going on television. The Times Square studio became a place of comfort and expression.
“I used to go home and turn the television on immediately so I did not miss a minute of Carson Daly counting down that day’s top ten,” says junior Kristen Clements. TRL defined a generation, but the producers have decided that the next generation will have to find another forum.
The Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, NSYNC, Nelly, Eminem, and countless others made TRL what it is. They came to Times Square with Carson Daly and were kids again. With only the constraints of what can air in the afternoons on cable television (and sometimes that fell by the wayside) artists felt they could do anything.
The fans made TRL possible. It was our votes and our viewership that kept it going for ten years. TRL was the first of its kind. Not a replacement, FNMTV, has returned after a short stint over the summer.
There is no replacing ten years of top tens, but music will still play through the speakers of Music Television. It is hard to consider that any show could possibly reach the level of TRL, however. It has reached it’s number, ten years, and will bid audiences farewell in a two hour special in November.
