ZZ Top

This isn't a perfect roundup of ZZ Top's superstar years of the '80s, but it comes pretty close. It dips back into the '70s for "Pearl Necklace" and "La Grange," with a couple of selections from the post-peak '90s, but this does offer the MTV-era basics: "Gimme All Your Lovin'," "Sharp Dressed Man," "Rough Boy," "Tush," "My Head's in Mississippi," "Doubleback," "Cheap Sunglasses," "Sleeping Bag." What slows this record down are some new cuts and album tracks that don't deserve to be here, along with a remix, not the original version, of "Legs." Still, that may just be quibbling for some listeners, since the basics are all here, making this a good complement to the '70s-focused The Best of ZZ Top (although it would be nice if a definitive disc, with all the hits, would appear on the market).

Interestingly, while always priding themselves on being a kick-ass live band, ZZ Top never got around to issuing a full-length live album during their 1970s/1980s peak. But as they say, it's better late than never, and 2011 finally saw the arrival of an archival live ZZ Top recording, "Live in Germany 1980". Featuring half of the audio portion of their 2009 "Double Down Live" DVD, "Live in Germany 1980" does a fantastic job of displaying all of the group's pre-"Eliminator" classics in a concert setting.

Those men with the beards are back with a compilation video of some of their greatest hits, spanning over ten years.

XXX is the thirteenth studio album (also including live material) by the American rock band ZZ Top, released in September 1999. The album's title commemorates the band's 30th anniversary.

A CD accompaniment to the Eagle Rock live DVD release of ZZ Top's November 1, 2007 set at the Nokia Theater in Grand Prairie, TX, Live from Texas is one for the fans - a latter-day live record that's by no means embarrassing but not very captivating, either. The set list is hits-heavy, containing every one of the MTV hits from Eliminator and all the classic rock radio staples, all taken just a little bit slower than they were on record. That combined with the crystal clear production makes the band seem just a little bit sluggish at times, but they can still churn out a boogie - "Sharp Dressed Man" in particular cooks - and Billy Gibbons' guitar still snarls as much as his voice growls, which is enough to make this worth a listen for longtime fans.

Fandango! is the fourth album by the American blues rock band ZZ Top, released in 1975. Half the tracks are selections from live shows, the rest are new songs from the studio. Fandango, from which the album gets its name, is a type of dance similar to flamenco. In the late 1980s a digitally remixed version of the recording was released on CD and the original 1975 mix version was discontinued. The remix version created controversy among fans because it significantly changed the sound of the instruments, especially drums. The remix version was used on all early CD copies and was the only version available for over 20 years. A remastered and expanded edition of the album was released on February 28, 2006, containing three bonus live tracks. The 2006 edition is the first CD version to use Terry Manning's original 1975 mix.

Before they sweated their image down to beards, babes and hot rods, ZZ Top were a down 'n' dirty blues-rock trio with a bonafide hot guitar player in Billy Gibbons. On this 14-track offering, Warner goes back through the back ZZ catalog and cobbles together an interesting collection of the Texas trio's bluesier sides that originally appeared on their earliest albums. Highlights include "Brown Sugar," "A Fool for Your Stockings," "My Head's in Mississippi," "Apologies to Pearly" and Gibbons' storming stringwork on "Bar-B-Q."