Pop on TV: Someone Forgot the Mystique

Ever get the feeling that we’re seeing too much of our pop stars?

That thought came to mind twice last weekend, once while watching a new DVD package containing pop highlights from the old Ed Sullivan TV show and then while spending way too much time with Courtney Love.

In a novel piece of programming, the flamboyant spitfire took over MTV2 for 24 hours starting last Saturday afternoon, to do such things as show videos (including her own) and talk to her celebrity friends, from Michael Stipe to Ryan Adams, in person or on the phone.

Mainly, Courtney talked about her favorite subject. Two guesses.

She was at her best when she championed the new energy in rock (the White Stripes, the Hives, the Strokes) and at her worst celebrating everything Courtney. She flashed her left breast before we even made it to the first commercial and lectured endlessly about her role in the evolution of women in rock.

In the end, even she had to admit that 24 hours was too much TV time. By Sunday morning, Love was napping while MTV2 replayed earlier moments from the program.

More than anything, the marathon underscored the excess that is rampant on MTV and similar channels.

The danger is that MTV might now decide to try the binge approach with other musicians. Should we prepare ourselves for “April with Avril”?

MTV already gives us more personality pop than we need. Shows such as “MTV Cribs” strip a lot of the mystery from artists by taking us on tours of their homes, including the bathrooms.

Which is where Ed Sullivan comes in.

After “24 Hours of Love,” it’s hard not to yearn for the innocence and urgency of the ‘50s and ‘60s, when seeing a pop star on television was so rare that it was truly an event.

We’re never going back to the day when all you see of a rock star on television is two or three songs on weekly variety shows. But there is something to be said for swinging the pendulum back a bit.

In its two decades, MTV has given us some hit “Unplugged” albums and some funny moments on its Video Music Awards. Nothing in its 175,000 hours of broadcasting, however, matches the impact of a couple of evenings of the most celebrated of those old variety shows.

“The Ed Sullivan Show”--a family hour that offered everything from circus acts to scenes from Broadway plays--was must viewing on Sunday nights in millions of homes. The treat for teens was seeing one hot pop act per show.

When Elvis Presley first appeared on the Sullivan show in September 1956, the ratings were enormous--as much as 80% of the TV audience, according to some reports. Col. Tom Parker, the singer’s manager, knew the value of exclusivity, and he kept Presley’s TV appearances to a minimum. In fact, Presley didn’t perform again on TV for more than a decade after the Sullivan shows. The only way you could see him was to pay your way into the movies.

The ratings again were huge eight years later, when the Beatles made their U.S. TV debut on Sullivan’s show. An estimated 73 million people tuned in--almost three times the audience for the Grammys these days.

Presley and the Beatles were in a class by themselves, but other acts still stand out in “Ed Sullivan’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Classics,” a nine-disc DVD collection that was released Tuesday by Rhino Home Video.

The highlights in the set, which is also available in VHS, range from an exuberant Michael Jackson leading his brothers, the Jackson 5, through “ABC” to the Rolling Stones romping through “Paint It, Black,” with young Keith Richards bouncing around the stage like an excited youngster rather than a cool rebel.

We also see Jim Morrison, looking sexier than any rocker since Elvis, singing “Light My Fire” with the Doors. And there’s Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty twisting his vowels into Delta-speak on “Proud Mary,” and James Brown’s scorching “Prisoner of Love,” and Janis Joplin’s foot-stomping “Raise Your Hand.”

If seeing these highlights now is exciting, you can imagine how the images stuck in kids’ minds in the ‘50s and ‘60s. In those days, fans replayed the memories of that five- or 10-minute performance over and over in their heads as they listened to the artists’ records--waiting for the day the act came to town so they could see the artist in person.

With the overexposure on MTV, pop fans now have to spend a lot of their time erasing worthless images from their minds. I’d trade everything Love did during her 24 hours in front of the camera for three minutes of a great new song.