Today, MTV is a zombie network that primarily airs episodes of Ridiculousness and random Paramount-owned comedy films. It’s depressing. But before all that, before The Real World and Road Rules, MTV was a channel that mostly played music videos, and it was cool. So I was happy to hear that someone has created a free MTV simulator website, complete with retro ads.
MTV Rewind is a website that tries to recreate the experience of watching the original music channel back in the day. When you first visit the site, it starts playing the original MTV broadcast, complete with VJ introductions and the original music videos that were aired on that faithful day back in August 1981. I wasn’t alive back then, but it’s still fun to relive that launch from the comfort of my PC in 2025.
Beyond recreating the first day, MTV Rewind features different decades you can swap between, built up of playlists featuring thousands of videos, as well as random, old TV ads from back in the day. And I have to admit, there is something special and comforting about returning to an era in which music was delivered to me without me having to create playlists, seek out artists, or hear the stuff that some algorithm decides I want to listen to next. Just a hose of old music videos streamed directly into my ears. Cool shit.
The creator of MTV Rewind says they built this project, which uses YouTube for all the videos, over the course of a week as a “passion project.” They shared on Reddit that they have “a deep nostalgia” for MTV and miss the 24/7 music videos. I’m happy they took the time to make this site. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of 1990s music to jam out to while I work.
