utorak, 30.12.2008.
ZZ Top - Eliminator (1986) (25th Anniversary Collector's Edit 2008)
Oh, man! Remember when we'd sit there watching Whispering Bob on the New Year's Eve 'Old Grey Whistle Test Special' and phoning in to make sure 'Gimme All Your Lovin,' 'Sharp Dressed Man' or 'Legs' won the video vote? Then one year, (this was before we had video recorders in the home, wasn't it?), Bob played all 3 in a row! I mean, Lynyrd Skynyrd won enough times with 'Freebird,' now it was ZZ's turn, and what classic tracks and videos they were and still are!
On Disc one we have the 'Eliminator' album for the first 11 tracks, as per usual, and is it OUR age NOW or don't these tracks date? Theymore… sound as fresh as they did 25 year's ago! Track 12 is 'Legs' single version / bonus track, 13 to 17 are Live, previously unreleased bonus tracks, and then a dance mix of 'Legs,' which is fun and just knockout!
Disc 2 is the DVD with those 3 'Whistle Test' classics plus 'TV Dinners.' Then, and this will make everyone just Click To Buy if you haven't decided to already, four Live tracks from ZZ's performance on 17th November 1983 on 'The Tube.'
Now, we probably got the vinyl disintegrating there in the LP box, and the original CD caked in dust by now, but just click the button, THIS IS THE PUPPY YOU NEED for the 21st Century; you'll be 25 year's younger by the time you've played this a few times!
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
The song Thug was featured in the 2008 video game Grand Theft Auto IV.
Codec: mp3
Bitrate: 320 kB/s
Size: 178 MB
Genre : Blues, Rock
Cover: Front
Tracklist:
01. Gimme All Your Lovin 4:04
02. Got Me Under Pressure 4:03
03. Sharp Dressed Man 4:18
04. I Need You Tonight 6:18
05. I Got the Six 2:54
06. Legs (Original Album Version) 4:33
07. Thug 4:19
08. TV Dinners 3:50
09 .Dirty Dog 4:06
10. If I Could Only Flag Her Down 3:40
11. Bad Girl 3:22
12. Legs (Single Version) 3:35
13. Gimme All Your Lovin (Live / previously unreleased) 4:45
14. Sharp Dressed Man (Live / previously unreleased) 5:15
15. I Got the Six (Live / previously unreleased) 3:06
16. TV Dinners (Live / previously unreleased) 4:13
17. Got Me Under Pressure(Live / previously unreleased) 4:07
18. Legs (Dance Mix Bonus) 7:51
http://lix.in/-3590bd
