"I Want My MTV"

It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since the music television network burst onto the scene, forever changing the face of American pop culture. To celebrate the August 1 anniversary, MTV/Pocket Books has published MTV—Uncensored, a retrospective filled with photos, oral history, behind-the-scenes glimpses and dish from celebrities such as Madonna, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, rapper Snoop Dogg, Cindy Crawford, Denis Leary and Julie Brown. "You can almost use the book as a crib sheet to pop culture over the past 20 years," says Pocket's publishing director Liate Stehlik. "It's amazing to see the whole spectrum, from Bruce Springsteen to Britney Spears." Pocket publisher Louise Burke says, "We really wanted a book that would straddle both the older audience who remembers the Boy George era and younger viewers more interested in Britney Spears." To achieve this end, Pocket teamed up with fellow Viacom partner MTV Books, which had the full resources of MTV at their disposal.

"The MTV group really spearheaded this project and made it happen. It usually takes two years to put together a book like this, and they did it in less than nine months," reports Stehlik. No easy task, says MTV director of publishing Jacob Hoey. Editors had to sift through "thousands upon thousands" of images, for one thing. "MTV in its early days was not exactly the most organized place," he says wryly. "It was kind of like a big party, and no one thought, 'We should be archiving this material for posterity.'" Uncensored rolled out with a 50,000 first printing, and it will receive an extra marketing push in November: Waldenbooks will offer a "gift with purchase" poster. Hoye adds, "We know a lot of kids can't go out and drop the $40 for the book, but we hope it makes a good gift item." If one clue serves as an early indicator, that prediction should be right on the money. "You go into bookstore and see covers that are just ravaged, and pages thumbed through extensively," says Hoye. Looks like a lot of people still want their MTV.