The Last VJ

When MTV debuted nearly 35 years ago, the video jockeys, or VJs, became nearly as famous as the musicians they presented. Folks like Martha Quinn, Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Pauly Shore, Downtown Julie Brown, Kennedy, Bill Bellamy and Carson Daly became stars. Of course, MTV and later VH1 became more about reality shows and less about music, so VJs began to go extinct. However, one VJ remained. Jim Shearer started at MTV in 2002 and served as the host of VHI's Top 20 Video Countdown for the past 5 or 6 years. Jim is great. He's funny, does an excellent job interviewing guests and simply seems like a guy that would be cool to hang out with. And yes I may be biased because Jim is also from Western Pennsylvania and agreed to do an interview with me here on Sean's Ramblings.

Inexplicably, VH1 decided not to renew Jim's contract for 2015. The Top 20 countdown is currently having guest hosts (Gavin DeGraw last week and Andy Grammer this week). I'm sure they are both swell people (plus DeGraw attended Ithaca College; I'll have to share my story about him sometime), but they are no Jim Shearer.

Fortunately, we can still see Jim. He started Gimme 5 with Mike Adam, and as usual, Jim is great. Again, I may be biased but Jim's top five are much better than Mike's picks.

You can check out their first two episodes below and follow Gimme 5 and Jim on Twitter.

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Best Rap Feature in a Pop Song



While I'm not sure he's looking for work, someone needs to hire Jim immediately!