Many of ZZ Top’s traditional fans were unhappy with the band’s new commercial sound, accusing them of selling out. The promo for Legs won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Group. Backed by distinctive music videos with heavy rotation on MTV, Gimme All Your Lovin, Sharp Dressed Man and Legs were all Top 40 hits in the US with the latter reaching number three in the singles charts. To date it has sold over 20 million copies, making it ZZ Top’s biggest selling album.Įliminator’s success lay heavily in the band’s embracing of music videos. Released on March 23rd, 1983, Eliminator became ZZ Top’s first international hit, reaching number three in the UK and number nine in the US. On Side B are Legs Thug TV Dinners Dirty Dog If I Could Only Flag Her Down Bad Girl. On Side A are Gimme All Your Loving Got Me Under Pressure Sharp Dressed Man I Need You Tonight and I Got the Six. Hill and Beard were largely absent from the recording process with a drum machine replacing Beard and Hudson’s keyboard bass overtaking Hill’s bass guitar.Įliminator features 11 tracks. Gibbons and Hudson would write most of the music and lyrics for Eliminator, with Beard reputedly playing golf throughout most of the process. This first manifested on 1981’s El Loco but really found its footing on ZZ Top’s eighth album Eliminator.Īlong with engineer Linden Hudson, Gibbons became obsessed with using drum machines to create a tight tempo, with most of the songs on the album employing 120 beats per minute, a tempo generally associated with disco up to that point. Gibbons was won over by OMD’s synth sound and decided to incorporate synths and drum machines in to ZZ Top. Also appearing on the show was the New Wave outfit Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). In 1980 ZZ Top made an appearance on the BBC show The Old Grey Whistle Test. When they returned in 1979 with the platinum selling Degüello, Gibbons and Hill were now sporting their iconic beards, making ZZ Top one of the most recognisable bands in rock music. In 1976 the trio took a three year break as Beard attempted to kick his drug addiction. They scored their first US Top 10 album with 1973’s Tres Hombres. In addition to the music itself, the music videos produced for Eliminator were in constant rotation on MTV, putting ZZ Top on the map for a new generation.Formed in Texas in 1979 by vocalist-guitarist Billy Gibbons, later joined by drummer Frank Beard and vocalist-bassist Dusty Hill, ZZ Top began life as a blues rock outfit. The album produced multiple 80s standards like “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Legs,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” and “Got Me Under Pressure” that were radio regulars at the time, and continue to be played on classic rock stations today. While it has a B side, it has no B sides: all the tracks thump. The result is a tight, polished album that’s considered one of the great rock ‘n’ roll records, and ZZ Top’s only Diamond album (10 million or more units sold). The addition of popular 80s instrumentation like synthesizers and sequencers added depth to an already one-of-a-kind band, creating a unique new “synthesizer meets soul” sound. The band doubled down on everything that made their first seven albums great - the Southern blues boogie rock sound, the irreverent lyrics, the style - and blended it with a more 80s sensibility and sound. If Tres Hombres built the launchpad for ZZ Top’s success, 1983’s Eliminator shot them into orbit.
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