Folks in a certain age bracket might recall staying up late and watching MTV’s 120 Minutes. In the late 80s and early 90s, it exposed legions of impressionable young people to bands including Depeche Mode, They Might be Giants, James, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, The Jesus and Mary Chain … oh, and some weird band no one had ever heard of called Nirvana.
The show lasted quite awhile, but got pushed by the surge of “reality” programming into later and later timeslots, and strayed a bit from the awesomeness of its early years. (Or maybe we just got old. But come on … Buckcherry? Slipknot? LIMP F’IN’ BIZKIT??!! Ugh.)*
The it got shunted to MTV2, where it died a quiet death, was succeeded by another show called Subterranean that ran from 2003-2011. 120 Minutes was revived on M2 from 2011-2013, but really, it’s the magic of the early years that gave it a permanent berth in the hearts and minds of so many future community radio programmers.
Anyway, some guy named Tyler (with the help of hundreds of volunteer contributors) has been painstakingly assembling the playlists of 120 and Subterranean, so you can dive down that rabbit hole of audio-visual nostalgia.
It’s all here. Tell your boss we’re sorry.
And here’s a taste:
* The writer refuses to link that crap.