YouTube offers hidden gem for all fans of Eighties and Nineties rock music

If you are of a certain age, or if you are a big fan of Eighties and Nineties rock music, including hair bands and other hard rock from those decades, YouTube has a channel that may cause you to go down a rabbit hole for hours on end.

In the spring of 1987, in response to the explosion in popularity of heavy metal music (now referred to as Hair Band music), MTV aired a program late on Saturday nights called Headbangers' Ball, and it played the best (and sometimes the worst) the genre had to offer for 90 minutes, and they did it until the show was canceled in 1995.

Ultimately hosted by Ricki Rachtman, the show aired hard rock song after hard rock song. Whether you watched it live, or since it was on Saturday night, recorded it on a handy dandy VHS tape to watch later, it was can't-miss television for rock and roll fans.

The Headbangers' Ball featured well-known and loved bands, but it also played new bands and music. To this day, I remember seeing "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses for the first time on Headbangers' Ball and knowing this was something different, and it was, and it was awesome.

What does Headbanger's Ball have to do with YouTube?

Last week, I was kicking around YouTube, looking for old rock videos and I accidentally stumbled across something that caught my attention. As I started looking at it, I started to get a little excited. If I was seeing what I thought I was, then it was going to be awesome.

I was seeing what I thought I was.

Vevo has a channel called The Complete Collection of MTV Headbangers' Ball, featuring 1,390 videos shown on the iconic program over the years. All the hair spray, all the spandex, all the rock and roll.

Of course, the early videos are stables from the hair band era - Cinderella, Motley Crue, Poison, etc. Then you get into some bands that don't hit it as big but were still firmly in that era. Slowly, videos from bands like Slayer, and Anthrax start to creep in, then we get some Metallica, Soundgarden, Pantera, and Nirvana.

As music tastes evolve, moving away from the excess of the hair bands to the grunge rockers and heavy metal acts of the early nineties, so do the videos Headbangers' Ball playlist evolve.

If you want to kill a few hours on a rainy day, or just want some cool tunes playing in the background, rock and roll enthusiasts will absolutely love this playlist. Not only is it a nostalgic tumble through some fantastic memories, but there is some really great music.

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