How to Relive Best of MTV’s Glory Days Free
Despite what you might have seen in the trending topics, MTV did not shut down at the end of 2025.
The network is still a shell of itself, though, so many people who remember when the channel actually showed music videos might see a distinction without a difference.
For those longing for the days of tunes on MTV, there is a new alternative that must be seen to be believed.
MTV Rewind is Retro to the Core
In many ways, MTV Rewind could be the perfect creation for this era of the World Wide Web.
“No ads, no algorithm, no login, just pure random discovery,” reads the front page, listing off things that tend to get in the way of the experience of surfing the web more and more every day.
(There are actually ads, but they are from the time period and really there just to made the experience more authentic. Presumably no one is making money off them.)
Drawing from the Internet Music Video Database and aggregating music videos from YouTube, MTV Rewind offers the experience that has been lost on actual MTV for many years: Watching music videos picked at random just for the sake of enjoying the experience.
Actually, it gets even better than that because there are some options to narrow the focus a bit.
One can simply shuffle all 35,000-plus videos or curate it in a few different ways.
The specific options are:
- MTV First Day
- 120 Minutes
- MTV Unplugged
- MTV 70s
- MTV 80s
- MTV 90s
- MTV 2000s
- MTV 2010s
- MTV 2020s
- Yo! MTV Raps
- Headbangers Ball
- Club MTV
The names of most of those are self-explanatory.
While “First Day” replays the videos that were on when MTV launchd in 1981, "120 minutes" features alternate acts and “Unplugged” collects classic acoustic performances, a very 90s phenomenon.
"Yo! MTV Raps" features, yes, rap artists and hip hop, while "Headbangers Ball" is for metal heads who need a Metallica or Megadeth fix.
Who is Behind MTV Rewind?
How long this site lasts remains to be seen.
Vice notes they are using the MTV name, presumably without permission, so legal issues could be coming for the person who created MTV ReWind.
And who is that?
Someone identifying themselves as Flexasaurus Rex.
As for why?
In another ironic twist given the way things typically work online these days, a false viral rumor (MTV shutting down) appears to have inspired someone to create it.
“I know what this art was. I know what it meant,” Rex wrote on X. “And I’m not letting it disappear without dignity.”
72 hours ago, MTV REWIND went viral on Reddit.
— FlexasuarusRex La Creme ???? (@flexasaurusrex) January 8, 2026
Since then:
- 322,000 people visited
- 78 countries reached
- $8,358 donated voluntarily
- 0 ads shown
- 0 algorithms used
For reference-
Instagram took 75 days to hit 1M users.
ChatGPT took 5 days (with OpenAI's… pic.twitter.com/Mie9pgkEHM
While the site is free, donations can be made to the creator at BuyMeACoffee.com.