Enr Top Lisr

Following 2004's Rancho Texicano: The Very Best of ZZ Top by a decade, The Very Baddest of ZZ Top comes in two different styles: a single-disc compilation with 20 tracks and a set that doubles it. The single disc is good, racking up most of the MTV-era hits – "Gimme All Your Lovin," "Sharp Dressed Man," "Legs," "Got Me Under Pressure," "Rough Boy," "Velcro Fly" – while doubling back for "La Grange, "Tush," "I Thank You," "Waitin' for the Bus," "Jesus Just Left Chicago," "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide," and "Cheap Sunglasses."…

Since Rhino released an exhaustive four-disc ZZ Top box in October 2003, some may question the appearance of a double-disc retrospective in June 2004, a mere eight months after the box set. The two may be released awfully close to each other, but they do play to different audiences – in other words, there are a bunch of fans who want all the hits, but not a full box set, and that's what the 38-track Rancho Texicano: The Very Best of ZZ Top delivers…

Produced by the award-winning Banger Films, ZZ TOP: THAT LITTLE OL’ BAND FROM TEXAS tells the story of how three teenage bluesmen - Billy F Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard – became one of the biggest, most beloved bands on the planet, all while maintaining a surrealist mystique that continues to intrigue fans and entice onlookers 50 years after the band’s inception. The 90-minute documentary is packaged with 35 minutes of live performances, a mix of recent Gruene Hall and archival footage.

That Little Ol’ Band from Texas comes up big in ZZ Top: Live from Texas, a concert recorded in Dallas in November, 2007. The hirsute trio (guitarist Billy Gibbons, bass player Dusty Hill, drummer Frank Beard) has been at it for nearly four decades now, and notwithstanding their synth-tinged commercial breakthrough in the ‘80s, they haven’t changed a whole lot in that time–not that that’s a bad thing, as ZZ Top is still essentially a fine, gut-bucket blues band. In the course of this 80-minute gig, they dig deep into the back catalogue, mixing in tunes from ‘70s albums like Tres Hombres, Rio Grande Mud, and Fandango, as well as more recent items from the multi-platinum Eliminator…

ZZ Top closed out their tenure with London Records in late 1977 with The Best of ZZ Top, a basic but terrific ten-song retrospective of highlights from their first five albums (well, four, actually, since the underwhelming Tejas is ignored). There are no surprises here, just album rock favorites, which means it does draw heavily on Tres Hombres (four songs, total), adds Fandango's "Tush," "Blue Jean Blues," and "Heard It on the X" for good measure, then rounds it out with two songs from Rio Grande Mud and a selection from the debut. Yeah, there are a couple good album tracks missing, but as a ten-song summary of their early years, this can't be beat.

With their second album, Rio Grande Mud, ZZ Top uses the sound they sketched out on their debut as a blueprint, yet they tweak it in slight but important ways. The first difference is the heavier, more powerful sound, turning the boogie guitars into a locomotive force. There are slight production flares that date this as a 1972 record, but for the most part, this is a straight-ahead, dirty blues-rock difference. Essentially like the first album, then. That's where the second difference comes in – they have a much better set of songs this time around, highlighted by the swaggering shuffle "Just Got Paid," the pile-driving boogie "Bar-B-Q," the slide guitar workout "Apologies to Pearly," and two Dusty Hill-sung numbers, "Francine" and "Chevrolet." There are still a couple of tracks that don't quite gel and their fuzz-blues still can sound a little one-dimensional at times, but Rio Grande Mud is the first flowering of ZZ Top as a great, down-n-dirty blooze rock band.

CD compilation series spanning 1955 to 1974, with one 10-track album for each year. Each track made the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.