Headbangers was a music TV show for special heavy metal music videos aired on MTV, MTV Rocks, MTV2, MTV Adria, MTV Australia, and several other sister channels. The show started on 18 April 1987 on MTV to play hard rock and heavy metal music videos at night. They play music videos from obscure and well-known artists. This show was famous because of its stark contrast to the best 40 music videos.
Pop-punk, rap music, grunge, and alternative rock music rise in the 1990s and challenge the significance of Headbangers Ball. The show was canceled ultimately in 1995. After eight years, a new heavy metal genre became famous and obtained a commercial foothold.
The interest of fans became unavoidable, and MTV2 had reintroduced the show. It was available in different degrees on the website of the network, but not telecasted on television.
Several videos were aired on the initial embodiment of this series might get home on Metal Mayhem with a similar theme on MTV Classic (a sister channel). As per a private fan website, the introductory show featured different clips by Dokken, Cinderella, Kiss, Accept, Poison, Whitespace, and several others.
The original host of Headbangers Ball
The ball is commonly known as Heavy Metal Mania that started airing in June 1985 and helmed by Twisted Sister fame “Dee Snider”. After its opening, MTV added live interviews with different bands for expansion.
Its premiere was hosted by Kevin Seal followed by VJ Adam Curry. Ultimately Riki Rachtman set on the show, and he became the most recognizable host of this show. Undoubtedly, Headbangers Ball was a famous music show on MTV, and it airs for almost eight years.
Phil Taylor (Philthy Anima) and Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead had co-hosted the show.
They show their humorous form while announcing and introducing Def Leppard and Ozzy Osbourne videos. Lemmy began a segment wearing special swimming goggles and believed Jacques Cousteau as of Motorhead.
It becomes an underwater heavy metal version. Taylor quipped and shrugged shoulders in response and said it sunk. In conclusion, the Titanic was heavy, and it sunk.
The pair started some slapstick entertainment, and Taylor used a metal dustpan to hit his head and coaxed into reading off tour dates of Motorhead for an upcoming week. Early episodes of Headbangers Ball were unpredictable and loose because of metal star hosts. Wendy O. Williams Plasmatic did a section with gigantic videos of crawling live maggots on something behind her and King Diamond performed his interstitial sectors in front of an altar-like display of a skull and burning candles.
In this episode, he used his ominous voice to read “Mary Had a Small Lamb” and remarkably turned around to display MTV letters on his cape. These words quickly burst into blazes as another segue.
Headbangers Ball Song List
Tracks of Disc 1
| Disc No. | Title | Artist |
| 1 | This Is Now | Hatebreed |
| 2 | Stupid Girl | Cold |
| 3 | Price to Play | Staind |
| 4 | Straight Out of Line | Godsmack |
| 5 | World So Cold | Mudvayne |
| 6 | When It Cuts | Ill Niño |
| 7 | Separate | Sevendust |
| 8 | Fixation on the Darkness | Killswitch Engage |
| 9 | This Is the New Shit | Marilyn Manson |
| 10 | Smothered | Spineshank |
| 11 | Destroy All | Static-X |
| 12 | Hexagram | Deftones |
| 13 | Inhale | Stone Sour |
| 14 | House of 1000 Corpses | Rob Zombie |
| 15 | Sun Doesn’t Rise | Mushroomhead |
| 16 | Destroyer of Senses | Shadows Fall |
| 17 | Dead in Hollywood | Murderdolls |
| 18 | Pride | SOiL |
| 19 | Raining Blood (live) | Slayer |
| 20 | Safe Home | Anthrax |
Tracks of Disc 2
| Disc No. | Title | Artist |
| 1 | Heaven’s a Lie | Lacuna Coil |
| 2 | You Broke Like Glass | Eighteen Visions |
| 3 | Ruin | Lamb of God |
| 4 | Down Again | Chimaira |
| 5 | Cloud Connected | In Flames |
| 6 | We Will Rise | Arch Enemy |
| 7 | Infected | Demon Hunter |
| 8 | At the End of August | 36 Crazyfists |
| 9 | I Could Care Less | DevilDriver |
| 10 | Mannequin | Cradle of Filth |
| 11 | Endless | Unearth |
| 12 | Rejection Role | Soilwork |
| 13 | Mandibles | E.Town Concrete |
| 14 | Botchla | Poison the Well |
| 15 | Sworn Enemy | Sworn Enemy |
| 16 | Down | Motograter |
| 17 | March of the Fire Ants | Mastodon |
| 18 | Rational Gaze | Meshuggah |
| 19 | Relentless | Strapping Young Lad |
| 20 | Forever | As I Lay Dying |
The headbangers ball from 1988 to 1989, timing of the show was an increase to almost three hours. In this additional hour, a daily ball version “plus Hard 60” was aired.
Undoubtedly, the increase of heavy metal in the 1980s and 1990s was widespread. This program showed different mainstream-friendly videos from rock bands and hair metal.
Headbangers ball capitalized on increased ratings of TV, and heavy metal mania played an important role.
The initial block introduced several guests and metal videos. Dee Snider, the host of this show, was from the Twisted Sister band. In 1985, heavy metal mania began its run as one hour block. For almost two years, there were some great names appeared on this show as a guest, such as Bruce Dickenson, don Dokken, Jon Bon Jovi, and Paul Stanley.
After this unexpected success, MTV re-tool the format of this show. The show was aired once a month initially and then extended to a two hours show per week. Its name was changed to Headbangers Ball.
DJ John Brent had invented this name for his metal and rock roadshows in the United Kingdom.
In 1987, the show made its debut without any previous player. The Dee Snider was doing mania without any penny and thought to get payment for his hosting services. MTV had different thoughts and decided to use their VJ’s for hosting.
They rotate the show between VJs of MTV, such as downtown, smash, Julie brown, and Kevin seal. Some guest hosts were Wendy O. Williams, rob Halford and several others.
Several musical bands were appeared on the show to entertain viewers.
Is Headbangers Ball still on?
The show is not on the air, but a European tour was started in 2016 known as MTV Headbangers Ball. In 2020, the tour will be expanded. The package of this tour traditionally took place from late November – mid December. Nowadays, you can hear the quarantine version of headbangers ball theme song.
