ZZ Top

ZZ Top returned to the top of the charts in 1983 on the strength of Eliminator's huge singles. Taking their stadium-sized blues rock into the synthesizer age was the band's first smart move, and writing great songs was another. The ridiculously sexy women in their videos didn't hurt either.

Eliminator makes ZZ Top's last album, El Loco, sound positively mellow as it harks back to
the single-minded, burn-rubber days of the band's biggest successes. One could do a lot
worse: drummer Frank Beard slams away as tight, hard and potent as a kicking mule, bassist
Dusty Hill accompanies Beard with the kind of dirty thunks that'll loosen your back teeth,
and guitarist Billy Gibbons roars through a repertoire of blues- and Hendrix-influ... More >

Arena-rockers who never forgot heavy metal was once white blues, they took a long vacation and resurfaced as a fine white blues band starring a guitarist who always sounds like himself. Now, with hitest b.p.m.s speeding the groove, they've motorvated back toward metal again--boogie in overdrive, a funny car that's half platinum and half plutonium. The videos make you smile, the record runs you over. That's the pleasure of it. (Grade - B+)