"When you get something like MTV, it's like regular television. You get it, and at first it's novel and brand new and then you watch every channel, every show. And then you become a little more selective and more selective, until ultimately... you wind up with a radio"
About this Quote
David Lee Roth nails the lifecycle of new media with the shrugging swagger of someone who’s watched “revolution” get folded back into routine. MTV arrives as sensory overload: a buffet where the point isn’t taste, it’s access. His cadence - “every channel, every show” - mimics the binge impulse, the early-stage compulsion to consume simply because you can. Novelty acts like a drug, and the user is less a fan than a lab rat hitting the lever.
Then the turn: “more selective and more selective.” Roth isn’t praising refined taste so much as describing fatigue. Abundance doesn’t automatically create sophistication; it creates triage. The viewer’s freedom is real, but it’s also exhausting, and the selection process becomes a quiet retreat from the very thing that was supposed to expand possibilities.
The punchline, “you wind up with a radio,” is doing several jobs at once. It’s funny because it’s backwards: all that futuristic video infrastructure and you end up choosing the older, simpler medium. It’s also a musician’s tell. Roth is defending the primacy of audio - music that can ride along with your life rather than demand you sit still and watch. In MTV’s early-80s context, when rock was being rebranded into image-first product, the line reads like an artist calling out the attention tax. Eventually, the spectacle wears off, and people go back to what works: sound, portability, and a little control over their own mental bandwidth.
Then the turn: “more selective and more selective.” Roth isn’t praising refined taste so much as describing fatigue. Abundance doesn’t automatically create sophistication; it creates triage. The viewer’s freedom is real, but it’s also exhausting, and the selection process becomes a quiet retreat from the very thing that was supposed to expand possibilities.
The punchline, “you wind up with a radio,” is doing several jobs at once. It’s funny because it’s backwards: all that futuristic video infrastructure and you end up choosing the older, simpler medium. It’s also a musician’s tell. Roth is defending the primacy of audio - music that can ride along with your life rather than demand you sit still and watch. In MTV’s early-80s context, when rock was being rebranded into image-first product, the line reads like an artist calling out the attention tax. Eventually, the spectacle wears off, and people go back to what works: sound, portability, and a little control over their own mental bandwidth.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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