On 'Headbanger's Ball,' MTV Bought Metal to the Masses
Who remembers the name of the first host? (It wasn't Riki Rachtman.)
As MTV started beaming into more households through the early '80s, viewers were seeing and hearing music that they might not have caught elsewhere, and some acts were able to reach a completely new audience. In 1983, few bands benefited from the exposure quite like ZZ Top, that "little ol' band from Texas" who broke big on the pop charts with their album Eliminator.