Eliminator |
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Released: March 23, 1983 Peak: 9 US, 3 UK, 2 CN, 2 AU Sales (in millions): 11.0 US, 1.2 UK, 23.4 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock |
Tracks:Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
Total Running Time: 45:00 The Players:
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Rating: 4.185 out of 5.00 (average of 24 ratings)
Quotable:“An electro-boogie masterpiece” – author Robert DimeryAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Album:ZZ Top formed in the 1960s as a Texas-based blues-rock trio. They made five albums for London Records in the 1970s, including the multi-platinum top-10 Tres Hombes in 1973. They also landed a few classic rock staples with “La Grange” and “Tush.” In 1978, they signed with Warners. Their 1979 platinum-selling Deguello “demonstrated with a series of wry, surreal songs, that ZZ Top were not the simple, rustic trio that most people had taken them for in the past.” TB 1981’s gold-selling El Loco “continued in a similar vein, adding a smutty sense of humor to songs such as ‘Pearl Necklace’ and ‘Tube Snake Boogie.’” TBFor their next movie, the trio surprised their fans by embracing the “synths and sequencers” AM while still retaining “the driving blues guitars of previous ZZ Top albums” TB for 1983’s Eliminator. “They plunged in with such aplomb that drummer Frank Beard was suspected of having been drum-machined off the tracks. In truth, his crisp beats and Dusty Hill’s chugging bass are merely supports for the star: guitarist Billy Gibbons – forever wrapping furry likc round the wry lyrics, but never overinduldging like lesser soloists.” RD In trying to keep up with “the sound of the times” AM the band “risked looking like the embarrassing uncles. Instead they conjured an electro-boogie masterpiece” RD that became the biggest-selling album of the band’s career. “It wasn't that they were just popular – they were hip, for God’s sake, since they were one of the only AOR favorites to figure out to harness the stylish, synthesized grooves of new wave, and then figure out how to sell it on MTV.” AM “Even if they didn’t quite look the part, ZZ Top’s songs about fast cars and faster women were suddenly in vogue.” TB making them “rivaled only by Michael Jackson when it came to heavy MTV rotation in 1983.” TB As Beard said, “We decided that the girls were a lot better looking than we were and that the car was even better looking than we were.” RD The videos “established a strong visual image for the band,” TB populated “with scantily clad beauties as well as the obligatory red coupe.” TB The latter image played off one of “the most iconic album covers of the 1980s” TB – the “airbrushed image of a red Ford coupe.” TB Gimme All Your Lovin’ and Legs were MTV staples during the music channel’s formative years” TB but it also helped that the band had crafted “songs that deserved to be hits.” AM Alongside the two aforementioned songs, they also had Sharp Dressed Man. This was the band’s “greatest set of singles since the heady days of Tres Hombres.” AM Even the album cuts, such as “the elegiac I Need You Tonight and the slap-happy bass showcase Thug,” RD were high enough quality that “they would have been singles on El Loco.” AM “The songs alone would have made Eliminator one of ZZ Top’s three greatest albums…Years later, the sound of the times winds up sounding a bit stiff. It’s still an excellent ZZ Top album, one of their best, yet it sounds like a mechanized ZZ Top thanks to the unflaggingly accurate grooves. Then again, that’s part of the album’s charm – this is new wave blues-rock, glossed up for the video, looking as good as the omnipresent convertible on the cover and sounding as irresistible as Reaganomics. Not the sort the old-school fans or blues-rock purists will love, but ZZ Top never sounded as much like a band of its time as they did here.” AM |
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First posted 4/28/2008; last updated 6/25/2025. |
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