MTV’s TRL revival had a bad debut, made worse in wake of the Las Vegas tragedy

The Daily Beast

There are no requests or music videos on this new iteration of TRL. Add to that the awkwardness of having to do a high-energy show in the wake of a horrible tragedy. “The frantic hour was the television equivalent of a strobe light,” says Kevin Fallon, “blinding viewers with nanosecond content that its unseasoned hosts couldn’t manage to keep up with, let alone anyone watching at home: A performance! Now 10 seconds of an interview! A game! A prayer! Back to the interview! Out to Times Square! Just kidding, back to the studio! A viral video! Ed Sheeran! Twerk on strangers! Should we do another prayer? The premiere of this new, social-media age TRL unveiled a MTV populated by Vine stars, where music videos are watched on YouTube, and in which the teenagers in the TRL audience are experts at contouring and fashionable enough to star in their own videos—a far cry from the constellation of acne, rat’s nest of braces, and factory of Abercrombie t-shirts that defined the O.G. TRL aesthetic.”

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