Fuse TV: It’s like MTV, except with videos!

At our house, summer is the time we look at television that we might not ordinarily watch during the regular season. Not like “American Gladiators” or “So You Think You Can Dance” — I do have some pride — but often we pick up interesting basic cable stuff that we might not ordinarily watch, or things like Jeopardy.

So far this year, we’ve been filling up a lot of time with Fuse TV. I discovered it a few weeks ago, on a Saturday morning, when I first stumbled across a show called “Loaded”. “Loaded” offers a thirty-minute block of music videos from a single artist. I happened upon it toward the end of a Fall Out Boy block. We have since DVR’d and watched blocks from Stone Temple Pilots, Foo Fighters, Weezer, and others.

Other shows on Fuse include “Video Yearbook”, a compilation of videos from a specific year, and a daily “No. 1 Countdown”, which rotates daily amongst rock, alternative, hip-hop, or “viewer’s choice.” All of these shows, including Loaded, appear to be different compilations each time you watch — we’ve recorded a few episodes of Loaded twice to check, and were rewarded with a different mixture of videos from Weezer and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

It’s not all music videos, of course. They play movies in the evenings, although these “Full Volume Flicks” are often guilty pleasures. (But how could you not love Empire Records?) There is also the occasional unfortunate reality show or “documentary”. But if you’re a member of the original MTV generation (who remembers when Video Killed the Radio Star), it’s refreshing to actually be able to see music videos regularly. Or even have them on in the background while you’re doing other things, like writing.

Sure, part of it is nostalgia. I’m old enough that I remember having a three-hour-a-day MTV habit as a teenager in the ‘80s. I’m old enough that I’ve watched both MTV and M2 turn from all-music-all-the-time rock fests into crappy reality channels. I’m old enough that I remember feeling old when I started to enjoy VH1 more than MTV, only to have it follow in its younger sibling’s footsteps.

But it’s more than that. After all these years, I still love new music — especially alternative and modern rock. So it’s nice to have a place where I can both keep up with new music and rediscover old favorites from the ‘90s and ‘00s. And it’s somehow comforting to know that while change is inevitable, there’s still a place where a nerd like me can just enjoy the music without all of the other distractions.