zz Top Eliminator Target

Theoretically, aging wouldn't be that difficult of a trick for ZZ Top to pull off, since the little ol' band from Texas is thoroughly grounded in the blues, an ageless music that can sound equally good from the young and old alike. After all, countless blues-based musicians, from Lightnin' Hopkins and Muddy Waters to B.B. King and the Rolling Stones, have aged gracefully, albeit in varying degrees. So why does ZZ Top sound so stiff and useless on XXX, a record celebrating their 30th anniversary? Part of it could be that the songwriting is decidedly weak, but a band as seasoned as ZZ Top should be able to make third-rate material at least listenable. The real problem is that the band long ago sacrificed organic rhythms for a steady synthesized pulse. They suggested this even before 1983's Eliminator, but that record was a bizarre, unpredictable masterstroke; after all, nobody would have predicted that a blend of Texas blues-rock and new wave drum machines would work, let alone flourish. The problem was, the massive success of Eliminator made ZZ Top reluctant to abandon that sound. That was OK for Afterburner, since it was released at the tail-end of the new wave era, but on every album since, they retained the steady click track, even as they stripped away the synthesizers…

With an unchanged line-up stretching back to 1969 and global album sales in excess of 50 million, ZZ Top continue to delight fans around the world with brilliant live concerts and great music. The band has made a number of visits to Montreux over the years and this concert from the 2013 Festival is undoubtedly one of their finest live performances…

Blessed with their first full-fledged hit album, ZZ Top followed it up with Fandango!, a record split between a side of live tracks and a side of new studio cuts. In a way, this might have made sense, since they were a kick-ass live band, and they do sound good here, but it's hard not to see this as a bit of a wasted opportunity in retrospect…

Well, if you just had your biggest hit ever, you'd probably try to replicate it, too. And if you were praised for being visionary because you played all your blues grooves to a slightly sequenced beat, you'd probably be tempted to not just continue in that direction, but to tighten the sequencer and graft on synthesizers, since it'll all signal how futuristic you are…

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…

ZZ Top's First Album may not be perfectly polished, but it does establish their sound, attitude, and quirks. Simply put, it's a dirty little blues-rock record, filled with fuzzy guitars, barrelhouse rhythms, dirty jokes, and Texan slang…

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…

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…