MTV News' Kurt Loder Turned 75 on Tuesday — and Made All of Twitter Feel Old

Ally Mauch
·3 min read

Back when MTV programming was filled with actual music videos and the VJs who introduced them, Kurt Loder delivered the news.

The iconic music journalist turned 75 Tuesday, making the hordes of '90s kids who grew up watching him feel decidedly old.

After spending his early career as an editor at Rolling Stone, Loder joined MTV News in 1988 and anchored the program through the 1990s. Throughout his tenure, he covered major moments in the music world, including the death of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain in 1994.

Fans reacted to the news of his 75th birthday on Twitter.

“Former MTV VJ Kurt Loder turns 75-years-old today. How old do you feel right now?” one user posted.

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Many compared Loder to other legendary news anchors, such as Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw.

“When @kurt_loder came on MTV News, you listened. That man was our generation’s Walter Cronkite,” another user wrote.

Others remembered his empathetic reporting the day Cobain died — “Kurt Loder was up there with Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Peter Jennings when I think of who I trusted to give me the news. When Kurt Cobain of Nirvana committed suicide, Loder was so professional... I'll never forget watching MTV that day. You knew it was serious if Loder was on.”

Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Though he’s no longer manning the MTV News desk, Loder still works in the entertainment industry, hosting a Sirius XM show, True Stories, and writing film reviews.

For the 30th anniversary of MTV in 2011, Loder discussed the channel's evolution from music videos to reality TV during an interview with The Atlantic.

“I know there are a lot of people who miss the old days, and who hate the reality-TV trend that MTV did so much to launch. I hate it myself. But consider: The round-the-clock abundance of music videos that once made MTV unique is now available in many, many other venues,” he said. “And music news — which Rolling Stone had actually pioneered as a serious undertaking — is available near-instantly all over the Web. Like it or not, MTV has evolved.”