Music. It's an amazing thing. It's proven to be one of the 7 levels of intelligence that humans have. People with strong music intelligence can sense the difference between a song with a good beat and a song that is pure crap.
Allow me to elaborate these differences.

My first example of pure music is Phish. This is a band that can harmonize their vocals flawlessly while playing their respective instrument. They can endure hours of simply "jamming", which is freestyle playing which is not pre-planned. Excellent melodies and a strong following, and about as mainstream as J.D. Salinger. This, my friends, is music.

Let me tell you what is NOT music:
The Backstreet Boys
N'Sync
All those little teeny-bopper groups
PUFF DADDY
All pop-rap
Hmmmm...did I just describe 90% of MTV?

You bet I did.

MTV, which started out as a swell idea, is killing America's musical inclination. It's filling the ears of today's youth with pure, unadulterated crap. My prime example of terrible, terrible but successful "music" is Puff Daddy. I hate him with a passion. Wanna know why? He rips off other people's hits to make his own. He calls it "sampling". No, that's not sampling. It's stealing. Sampling is taking part of a song or any media clip and slipping into a song, with credit given. You don't take someone else's well-deserved good music and make your own petty lyrics to it. At least Weird Al Yankovic makes it funny.

But, MTV makes Puff Daddy the king he is today.

Another example of an entire crap GENRE are quintet singing groups that are a complete studio creation. That's right, your Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, Five, 98 Degrees, Menudo, New Kids On The Block, they're all in the same. Record producers and managers dig up these people, with good singing voices, write shitty songs for them and give them the fame they want. Then, these tycoons pay MTV the big bucks to play their goddamn fucking songs over, and over, and over, and over, and over. 14 year old girls cry over these assholes. Oh, wow, N'Sync, don't you wish you were pedophiles now? This is not talent. It's hardly music. It's greed, plain and simple.

Speaking of greed, maybe you do or do not know, but MTV doesn't choose it's music. I mean, c'mon! Do you think the people who work there are really that music-stupid? The videos that are played nonstop are because record producers PAY MTV to play their artists' videos. Don't believe me? Stay up until 1 in the morning or so, and put on MTV. Maybe you've seen a show called 120 Minutes? Yeah, I've seen a LOT of good videos on that show, by bands I've never even heard of! But why are they on so late and don't have such a big name? Simple: The daytime and primetime slots are filled by already-paid-for videos. Hmmm...looks like whoever has the deepest wallet wins.

MTV has also been known to capture the soul of perfectly good bands and MTVize them. One example: KoRn. I love KoRn and have since they started. Good, heavy music that you can listen to repeatedly. So what does MTV decide to do? Overplay the HELL out of these very talented musicians. It's a damn shame. I remember when the only people who listened to KoRn were the few that heard of them and loved them. Now EVERYONE think's they're a goddamn KoRn fan because they saw the "Freak On A Leash" video. In my opinion, they also killed the career of one of my all-time favorite bands, 311. A lot of people only remember the "Down" video, bought their self-titled album, thought it was their first, then just considered them one-hit wonders. Well, guess what? 311/311 is their THIRD album, and the first 2 are 50x better. Pick up a copy of 311 "Music" and "Grassroots". THEN you'll know some 311.

MTV has also helped some bands "sell out". Let me explain what it really means to "sell out". It's when a band either does something that DRASTICALLY drives them from their roots, or when they take part in anything, such as Pepsi commercials, for the money, even though they are doing quite successful as a recording artist. The biggest sell-out of the 90's is probably Metallica. Yes, Metallica.
These were hard-rocking metalheads with long hair, lots of booze and chicks, and a pissed off attitude. Then, out of NOWHERE, they cut off their hair, look all clean cut, and go from metal to shitty, watered-down alternative music. Not only that, guess where they were mostly seen after that. You guessed it. MTV.

MTV is killing music. It's sucking in more and more talent and destroying it and even breeding bands with absolutely no skill at all. If you're really good at what you do, you'll do fine without MTV. Phish, Incubus, and a handful of others have proven that. Although I do fear for Incubus's future...