How TRL Captured the Y2k Zeitgeist
A conversation about Total Request Live
Editors’ Note: Every month on Together, Alone we choose a piece of culture to discuss. This month, we’re talking about the one-thousandth episode of Total Request Live. It is available for free on archive.org.
Arielle: I can’t wait to talk about the TRL special because NOTHING has changed and EVERYTHING has changed haha
Gabe: This was surreal! I think I watched this when it aired originally, in October 2002. I was most likely doing my calculus homework after school while it was on in the background.
A: I definitely remember watching it too. It’s interesting because I actually forgot the structure of the show and how it worked, but I knew every single song by heart.
G: There were a few songs where, during the intro, I wondered “how does this go?” and it immediately clicked when I heard it. Thinking back on what I was into at that time, I don’t know that I particularly liked any of these songs except “Country Grammar” (though I’m biased because of the St. Louis connection). But I watched TRL every day. Even people I knew who didn’t like anything about the show watched it regularly.
A: In a weird way, it seemed like an extension of how I watched Saturday morning cartoons as a kid. TRL was the weekday afternoon ritual when I was a teenager. What strikes me the most now is how boring the whole thing is! The only exciting part was bands performing. But the interviews were…not especially interesting? I’m not sure if you felt differently.
G: I feel the same way. I remember a couple of times when I set the VCR to tape the show in case I missed it. Once when Beck was on and once when Rage Against the Machine played1. I was disappointed in how awkward the interviews were. With this 1,000th episode, every interview was about TRL itself, which was strange and insular.
A: I also couldn’t get over how long it was, which probably speaks to how influential the show was. Today, you can’t get anyone to watch a video over two minutes. This was over an hour without commercials.
G: And most of the show was the studio chatter, and not the videos! Though with the videos—I’ve seen research from
that indicates songs are getting to vocals sooner than ever before. It’s striking how long some of the instrumental openings to these songs were, and the videos naturally have accompaniments for that. I wonder if most people sat and watched the whole show, or did other things while it was on.A: That’s a good question–you mentioned doing homework and I remember doing that too, though I think the regular non-anniversary episodes were just 30 minutes. I think as a teen I felt like I had to watch in order to know what music was important. Is that the sense you had too? I also was charmed by how excited the teenagers were–I remember that I wanted to be in Times Square with the crowd.
G: You hit on two points that really struck me with this rewatch. One is the fans: there was so much screaming all throughout the show! It was distracting to my now-old ears. The other point is on what music was important. I had forgotten how much the mainstream music world was shaped by TRL in these years. They mention Backstreet Boys and N*Sync being on the show early on, but also nu-metal acts like Limp Bizkit or Kid Rock, and then pop punk like Blink-182. Any band that had a big multi-platinum record seemed to pass through TRL. It’s hard to imagine any TV show, let alone a weekday afternoon cable show, having that kind of sway now.
A: I remember thinking that TRL was unique when I was a teen, but now it seems like it also really captures the zeitgeist of that time period, especially the way that people voted with their little Nokia phones? Every generation has the screaming teens, and yet this version of it captures a very specific moment in time. I agree that I don’t think that TRL could exist today in the same way it did then.
G: I went into this remembering that TRL was basically like a TV version of Casey Kasem, or that Carson Daly was the Y2K Dick Clark. But you’re right, that interactivity—the calls, the voting—places the show in such a specific moment. While I was watching, I kept thinking this was the end of one era and the beginning of another. They made such a point of mentioning how every genre was represented on the show—pop, rock, hip-hop, R&B. It’s a very mainstream idea of those genres, but it’s true that they’re all there. And the acts exist in this shared TV universe with known dynamics—Blink-182 and Eminem have videos making fun of the Backstreet Boys, for instance. But today, genre differences are thinner than ever (and mainstream rock doesn’t really exist). I was thinking of Kelefa Sanneh’s great book Major Labels, where he pins the decline of genre distinctions on playlist culture. Streaming apps set their playlists by mood. Over time, everything kind of blends into a sound that fits the playlist. Was TRL the first big shared internet playlist, or was it the last stand for strict genre distinctions?
A: Those are such great points and I love the idea of TRL as a kind of “shared playlist.” I also feel like the idea of having a shared music culture in general is something we don’t have as much anymore. Like, these songs played for WEEKS! It was considered a loss when they moved down the rankings. Today, a song might blow up for 5 minutes, but it’s not the same experience of shared music. I think the last big song to blow up what WAP and then I was really struck by how the next collaboration between Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion (Bongos) didn’t seem like it was able to get that same level of weeks-long interest.
A: Can we also come back to Carson Daily for a second. He was just entirely forgettable! Why was he the center of the phenomenon of TRL?
G: He’s so drab! My theory is that the key to Carson’s success at that time on MTV is that he’s a pop fan’s idea of what a rock fan is and a rock fan’s idea of what a pop fan is. He dressed in a rock-coded way, he seemed to be friendly with Kid Rock (🥴), but he held court with the boy bands and was the face of MTV. I wonder if everybody just thought he was meant for other people? Though it seemed like teasing Carson was part of the point sometimes. This episode showed an old clip of (I think) Jimmy Fallon pretending to be Carson.
A: So many people who have said or done concerning things made cameos on the show. Kid Rock. Marilyn Manson. I found it kind of shocking to see them as typical guests.
G: The bit where they’re all joking with Nick Carter dating Britney Spears was so uncomfortable in retrospect, too. And with Kid Rock and Marilyn Manson…I’m still formulating the right words here, but I think it’s revealing (if that’s the right word) that these acts who were supposed to be so rebellious and dangerous would cozy up with Carson Daly and MTV to sell that image, making themselves commercially viable rebels, while later on, we’ve learned terrible things about them.
A: That’s right. Perhaps that’s what feels most shocking about TRL now. How it’s a performance of edginess, but also a sort of reassuring performance not just for teens but for parents?
G: Yeah. This definitely seems like a show meant to be acceptable to parents who were in the room with their kids. It seems like there’s a kind of flattening that happens, where the most reprehensible elements are sanitized (hyper-aggressive dudes presented as blustery rockstars) and the safest elements are turned a little edgy (pop singers wearing torn jeans and lip rings). I wonder if this is an element of the multi-genre approach? It needs to appeal to as many people as possible, but not upset anyone.
A: Yeah, I feel like MTV had a bunch of shows like this that had teens and parents as an intended audience. What was the one where people of different age groups would watch music videos and talk about it?
G: Oh wow. I don’t remember that one! I was trying to tell a friend the other day about the show where a couple that just broke up would litigate whose fault it was, then each person sang a karaoke song at the end, and nobody believed it even existed.
A: And then MTV just stopped playing music mostly. Jersey Shore and spinoffs became their more popular programs.
G: I remember at the time of this episode, MTV was running more and more shows, and people joked how MTV didn’t play music anymore. And despite my critiques or frustrations with the show or the network, it’s interesting to think of a time when there was an entity like this trying to appeal to a wide audience and doing it through music. You mentioned songs just vanishing. It seems songs don’t even exist beyond their core audiences now. I just looked at the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard TikTok chart—there’s not one song in common in the top ten of either.
A: That is fascinating. Yes, we consume music completely differently today. Perhaps that’s why as bored as I was with TRL, I also felt tenderly towards it. But I also wonder if that’s just nostalgia. I don’t feel that way exactly when watching music shows of the ‘70s and ‘80s. TRL isn’t just a time capsule for me. For a long time, it did feel like a show made precisely for me, even though it’s obviously not tailored to me at all.
G: It was a part of the teenage routine, even for so many people who didn’t like any of the music or connect with the show. It was that glimpse into what was popular and it was something people talked about at school. And I think we were exposed to those songs a lot more back then, too, either through MTV or on the radio because we didn’t have as many on-demand entertainment options.
A: The fashion on the show is also fun to think about since ALL those trends are back in style now.
G: That was so wild to see! And the outfits were so specific to each artist’s image. Singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton had the vintage-looking blazer, Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus was wearing just a t-shirt and jeans, etc. I feel like I see people dressed like all of these artists now, unironically.
A: Yes, for sure. One last thing. Were you surprised at how non political the show was? I feel like teenage shows today are often deeply invested in politics and I was struck by how disinterested the show was with placing anything outside the context of the little universe of TRL. Of course, this made sense for a special, but it did seem to be a key feature of the show in general, if I’m remembering correctly.
G: Oh definitely. It felt so much like a Gen-X or a ‘90s holdover, to just exist with a total disinterest in politics. I remember watching that tape of the Rage Against the Machine performance, and my older brother (who was in college at the time) was making fun of it for being such a mismatch.
G: Going back to the relaunch and the nostalgia idea, I remember when they tried to bring TRL back, and I was surprised at how excited a lot of people I knew were. This was when we were at the end of our 20s, working most of the day, when streaming was picking up, and when social media was taking up all of our attention. I think there was a longing for a show that would just list what was popular and tell everyone what to pay attention to. I think a lot of people just wanted to know in order to feel connected and up to date.
A: Yes, I mean I feel like TRL’s success is also connected to a very specific teen audience. I think this comes back to an idea you mentioned earlier–about having this teen-centric edgy yet safe space right in the family living room. I don’t remember watching TRL after I went to college. But I do share that longing for a more centralized experience of music in the same way that I miss everyone watching the same popular TV show at the same time. (Here’s where I give a plug for what we do at Together, Alone!)
These were in fact the same day: November 3, 1999. That must be why they stick in my mind—they were on the same tape.
I recall the show existing at two points in my adolescence. One where I was enthralled and one where I was feeling ‘edgier’ and frustrated at the ‘commercially viable rebels’ and wondering what they were doing there.