The Bottom Line
Pros
- Trend setting
- Career making
- First with the latest bands
Cons
- Juvenile
- Can be a parody of itself
- Short on good interviewers
Description
- TRL usually airs mid-afternoon, though check your local listings.
- Taped in New York behind a glass studio reminiscent of morning programs like .
- Current video jockeys (VJs) include Damien Fahey, Vanessa Minnillo, and Susie Castillo.
- After 50 days on-air in the Top 10, videos are retired.
- Retired videos include those by Brittney Spears, ‘Nsync, Eminem, Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit.
- Unlike its early days, TRL is more talk show than video show, featuring more interviews and guests.
Guide Review - Overview: TRL – Total Request Live
I’m too old for Total Request Live, or just TRL, as its commonly known. But I’m not too old to appreciate its vibrancy, its youth and its ability to attract top name talent in the music industry. Though MTV has changed a lot in its 20-odd years, it still manages to give its audience a music video program that talks about music videos and spotlights the artist’s in them.
The show gets a lot of criticism for its teen pop sensibilities, jumping from video to a guest in study to the audience and back – and so on and so forth. But one can only imagine Dick Clark receiving similar criticism back in the early days of American Bandstand.
The show, about an hour long and fluctuating in its scheduled time, features a countdown of viewer voted favorite videos, intermixed with rock stars and celebrity interviews. It just skates under the definition of a talk show, but as MTV’s flagship program and its ability to launch careers (just as ) into the stratosphere, it certainly is a show that has people talking.
