10 of the best tracks played at Club MTV

Lights, camera, action. Words you would never hear in any club but Club MTV. Aired from August 31, 1987 to June 26, 1992, the show brought a slice of house, hip-hop and dance culture to viewers at home. Presented by Brummy’s own ‘Downtown' Julie Brown, at the Palladium club in New York, the camera would cut between a wannabe model getting low to Crystal Waters' ‘Gypsy Woman’ to the original music video. The show’s concept was to create a clubber's fantasy, and to help create the fantasy, producers turned to the formulae that beauty and glamour attract more viewers.

Was the show a genuine representation of club culture? Probably not. The torsos were a little too orange, the skirts a little shorter, the dancing a little more ‘professional’. Meanwhile, 3,500 miles away, the British youth culture adopted the same music but transformed it into an underground movement; a warts and all attitude that appreciated the music in its stripped-back, most authentic form, where bucket hats and baggy trousers were not just found in Sean Ryder’s wardrobe but became a uniform for the proud rave generation.

For those watching from home across the U.S., the show was groundbreaking in that it showed a change in nightlife to older generations, facilitated a space for the mainstream to create their own version of a previously underground music genre, and, most importantly, simply entertained viewers.

Whether it was a genuine representation of late 80s - early 90s dance culture or not, the show was fun, if not a little cringeworthy, and for today’s viewers, provides a nostalgic trip of club culture and some serious old-skool floor fillers.