![]() By the time of Hill's death in 2021, ZZ Top had become the longest-running band with an unchanged lineup in the history of popular music. They most recently released La Futura (2012) and Goin' 50 (2019), a compilation album commemorating the band's 50th anniversary. The Afterburner tour set records for the highest-attended and highest-grossing concert tour of 1986.Īfter gaining additional acclaim with the release of their tenth album Recycler (1990), and its accompanying tour, the group's experimentation continued with mixed success on the albums Antenna (1994), Rhythmeen (1996), XXX (1999), and Mescalero (2003). The popularity of these albums' music videos, including those for " Gimme All Your Lovin'", " Sharp Dressed Man", and " Legs", gave them mass exposure on television channel MTV and made them prominent artists in 1980s pop culture. They established a more mainstream sound and gained international success with Eliminator (1983) and Afterburner (1985), which integrated influences from new wave, punk, and dance-rock. With the album El Loco (1981), they began to experiment with synthesizers and drum machines. By the mid-1970s, ZZ Top had become renowned in North America for its live act, including the Worldwide Texas Tour (1976- 1977), which was a critical and commercial success.Īfter a hiatus, ZZ Top returned in 1979 with a new musical direction and image, with Gibbons and Hill wearing sunglasses and matching chest-length beards. Subsequent releases, such as Tres Hombres (1973) and Fandango! (1975), and the singles " La Grange" and " Tush", gained extensive radio airplay. Within a year, they signed with London Records and released ZZ Top's First Album (1971). ZZ Top formed after the demise of Moving Sidewalks, Gibbons' previous band, in 1969. They are popular for their live performances, sly and humorous lyrics, and the matching appearances of Gibbons and Hill, who wore sunglasses, hats and long beards. ZZ Top developed a signature sound based on Gibbons' blues guitar style and Hill and Beard's rhythm section. For 51 years, they comprised vocalist-guitarist Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard and vocalist-bassist Dusty Hill, until Hill's death in 2021. Nevertheless, the undeniable highlights are the two tracks featuring cameos from Jeff Beck: he contributes lyrical solos to "Rough Boy" and helps with the heavy-footed boogie of "Sixteen Tons," pushing the trio just far enough out of its comfort zone to provide some crackle.ZZ Top is an American rock band formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas. Older, the Lil' Ol' Band from Texas sounds thicker and heavier - and Billy Gibbons' growl is so gruff it seems tattered - but that helps distinguish these versions from the spit and polish of the studio versions not better, per se, but certainly the work of a band whose members happily settle into their advanced years, not wishing to change a thing about how they do things. During the 2000s and 2010s, ZZ Top released an excellent studio album called La Futura, but that's ignored here in favor for all the songs that are classic rock staples. There is no visual component to Live: Greatest Hits from Around the World, which may be how it skates around the first live album distinction - if there's no video, this is a pure album - but the record mines a similar musical vein, collecting highlights from latter-day ZZ Top tours. Assembled from various shows from various tours from around the world, 2016's Live: Greatest Hits from Around the World is billed as ZZ Top's first "full-length live album" - a matter of dispute considering how Eagle Rock released three CD/DVD/Blu-ray combo sets between 20.
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