Headbangers Ball

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Headbangers Ball is a TV show about heavy metal that used to MTV , in Europe on MTV Europe ran. It is now running on MTV2 and various international MTV offshoots, but in a significantly reduced form compared to the original version. The show first ran late on April 18, 1987 on MTV in the United States and Canada and showed music videos by heavy metal and hard rock bands. The show originally aired as a stark contrast to mainstream tastes. Since October 2019, the show has been running every Friday on MTV Germany .

Moderators

" The Ball ", as the show was also called, replaced Heavy Metal Mania in 1987 , hosted by Dee Snider from Twisted Sister . In the US, the format was initially moderated briefly by Kevin Seal , then by VJ Adam Curry , before Riki Rachtman finally took over the show. In Europe, where the format was established in January 1990, the moderators were Kristiane Backer (1990) and Vanessa Warwick (1991–1997).

Content and influence

Headbangers Ball was at times one of the most popular shows on MTV and ran for almost eight years in the US and six years in the main program in Europe. In Europe, the program ran late on Sunday evening for years and was repeated at different times during the week. In addition to music videos, interviews with bands and artists, themed specials on individual bands or metal subgenres as well as reports and live recordings of concerts and festivals such as the Dynamo Open Air were shown here . Sometimes metal artists acted as co-moderators or took over the presentation of some of the music videos they had chosen.

A recurring feature of the European broadcast was the Triple Thrash Treat , a sequence of three music videos from the Thrash Metal genre , mostly including one or more viewer requests or favorite videos of a studio guest.

The show's jingle was taken from the intro of Slaughterhouse by the American band Powermad from their 1989 album Absolute Power .

The heavy metal movement of the 1980s and early 1990s, and vice versa, benefited from the show's influence. For example, videos from today's well-known bands such as Metallica and Slayer were only broadcast in the night program and established through the broadcast, among other things.

End of Headbangers Ball

The show was shown in the US until 1995 when it discontinued MTV without notice to the host, producer or viewer. The European edition ran until 1997 and was recently shortened from three hours to only half a hour.

Afterwards, MTV tried to replace the show with the new Superock format and hostess Julia Valet and to get back on the road to rock success by broadcasting mainstream and alternative rock videos . However, the attempt failed.

Resumption of Headbangers Ball

After almost a decade of absence, MTV2 first broadcast the show in the US again in 2003, this time with Hatebreed singer Jamey Jasta as the presenter.

Record sampler

  • MTV2 Headbangers Ball (2003)
  • MTV2 Headbangers Ball, Vol. 2 (2004)
  • MTV2 Headbangers Ball: The Revenge (2006)

Each album contains at least one song by bands from the 1980s, such as Slayer, Anthrax , Megadeth and Iron Maiden as well as min. a live song.

Web links