ZZ Top had reached the top of the charts before, but that didn't make their sudden popularity in 1983 any more predictable. 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. Of course, it helped that they had songs that deserved to be hits. With
"Gimme All Your Lovin'," "Sharp Dressed Man," and
"Legs," they had their greatest set of singles since the heady days of
Tres Hombres, and the songs that surrounded them weren't bad either -- they would have been singles on
El Loco, as a matter of fact. The songs alone would have made
Eliminator one of
ZZ Top's three greatest albums, but their embrace of synths and sequencers made it a blockbuster hit, since it was the sound of the times. 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. [Based on
Rhino's 2008 Deluxe reissue of
ZZ Top's classic 1983 LP
Eliminator, the trio didn't have much in the way of unreleased songs left in the vaults, but that doesn't mean this double-disc set isn't useful. This set has a DVD devoted to the album's landmark videos --
"Gimme All Your Lovin'," "Sharp Dressed Man," "Legs," and
"TV Dinners," all staples of early
MTV -- adding a couple of live performances for good measure. Live performances are also the key to the expansion of the CD, as the seven bonus tracks contain two mixes of
"Legs" -- a 7" edit and a 12" mix -- and five live cuts from the
Eliminator tour. These live performances aren't as good as the sleek, gleaming finished album, as the group had neither learned to expertly play with a drum machine on-stage or figure out how to do these songs without electronics, but that just winds up highlighting what an exceptionally well-crafted, imaginative production the original
Eliminator was and for that, this deluxe edition is worth exploring.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
