Before there was YouTube and Vevo, there was MTV and MuchMusic. These TV music stations were the curators of cool. And when millennials were teenagers, they flocked to them to watch the hot new video or catch an interview with their favourite musicians. But now, Much (as the channel is now called) no longer airs music video content as artists drop their new singles directly onto their own social feeds and video platforms.
So what’s an old mainstream media brand to do? Join TikTok, of course. And as cultural critic and writer Amil Niazi notes, MuchMusic is relaunching at exactly the right moment: There’s a wave of ’90s and early-aught nostalgia crashing down on us, at exactly the moment both millennials and Gen Z kids are longing for a simpler time.
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