Some seven years in the making, the 120 Minutes Archive has compiled an exhaustive log of MTV’s alt-rock video show 120 Minutes (and its successor Subterranean), which includes playlists for 585 episodes, spanning 21 years, and links to thousands and thousands of videos played on the shows. Be careful. What started out as an innocent reminiscing on my former love of the Sugarcubes has turned into an hourlong marathon of clicking Sonic Youth, Cure, and Primus videos. Impressive, obsessive, and sure to remind you of a really bad haircut.
120 minutes was a good show and all but when is MTV going to release seasons 1 and 2 of Sifl and Olly??? They have been held hostage for over 10 years now. Come on MTV release them so I can once again be crescent fresh.
Oh great. Now I’m not going to get any work done today. Soup Dragons, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Jesus Jones… I’m in alt music heaven!
They replay 120 minutes every Sunday night on VH1 Classic. I like to record it and use it for background noise.
yeah, they do BUT…. They play the same constant 50 videos for the past year or so. I do record it on my DVR to check if I haven’t seen any videos on the same damn playlist, but I just keep on Foast Forwarding through the entire thing.
ADD MORE CLASSIC VIDEOS. NO MORE ALPHAVILLE. PLEASE!!!
Awesome! Why can’t great music be popular again? But then again MGMT and Vampire Weekend have had chart topping albums of late. Hopefully its a start.
The music of 120 Minutes was never popular. That was part of the fun of it.
Playing around on the site, it looks like the really really good stuff starts in 1988 with Jesus and Mary Chain, The Smiths, New Order, etc. Is this the beginning of the Alternative scene? Someone better informed please tell me.
The “alternative” scene had been steadily building on college radio throughout the 80s. Much of it grew out of punk music (which was late 70s). The Cure and Siouxsie & The Banshees both formed in 1976, R.E.M. in 1980, Sonic Youth in 1981. But yeh, the late 80s is when it started to peak before hitting mainstream in 1991.
At the time (say, late 1980′s) this type of pre-alternative music was actually referred to initially as Progressive Rock. Later it morphed into Modern Rock, with the term “progressive” being used to describe more “wayyyy out there” art and experimental type bands.
This makes me so happy I cry. I want to watch “Birthday” again…
I LOVED 120 Minutes! So glad you wrote this article so I can enjoy this great music again.
Thanks…now I’ve been sucked back into my days of working in college radio in the early-mid 90s with no hope of escape! Oooh, World Party and Urge Overkill…where are they now, people?
I wish MTV would have an Alternative Channel and air old 120/ Subterranean. There’s an MTV Jams. I guess that would require MTV to actually find and play videos…
site of the day for over four months strong. must be one helluva site.
i LOVED 120 Minutes.. i have tape and tape of videos i used to stay up and record. i should go through those one of these days
I could just die of happiness. I lost my old and worn VHS dub of Michael Stipe on 120 minutes…I think I have every single one of those songs on my iPod that was on that episode. Plantmannnnn!!!!!
In the mid 90s they had a contest for a new VJ for the show, I flew to Las Vegas Lollapalooza and auditioned and they showed it on the air – the Bob Mould hosted episode, they never picked a winner though.