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I just finished reading my courtesy copy of the book "I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution"
 At a little under 600 pages, this is a big book. It is equal parts chronology of MTV as it is of the music video as an art form and a business. The story is told by the 'cast of characters' themselves, with an introduction by authors Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum at the top of each chapter.
 This sometimes makes for a somewhat tiring read, as even I had to reference the 'cast' list in the back of the book several times to remember the person a paragraph or quote was attributed to. This style also allows for a very credible version of history. Co-author Rob Tannenbaum visited my house last year in Los Angeles and recorded over 5 hours of conversation, followed by numerous emails. My quotes are precisely as I recall saying them, so I assume the same is true for all participants. Anyone who watched MTV and music videos in the 80's and 90's will enjoy this book, as it details the evolution of a revolution from all the angles. It filled in a lot of gaps for me, in particular about the making of the videos themselves. Many stories I had heard or witnessed personally, but the majority I hadn't.
For me the book also filled in a number of gaps of how and why certain events took place during my 7 year tenure at the channel. I now know with certainty that Axl Rose and Doug Herzog were responsible for replacing me as the host of Headbangers Ball. For that I say, fuck you very much. That show was my passion.
There's a lot of laundty airing in the book, which makes it exciting and fun to plow through, but also recalls fond and sweet memories of a time when a generation was coming of age. I'm definitely missing a lot of stories, characters and angles, but their omission in no way detracts from the documentarian's mission.
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