It's the same old song - but I like it
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When 'Gimme All Your Lovin'' burst out of everyone's speakers and into the national consciousness in the early autumn of 1984, after having been around for nearly 18 months and hardly charting at all, it was a breath of fresh air. In the 70s ZZ Top had been known as an underground boogie blues trio; now, in the 80s, they reinvented themselves as MTV stars, a kind of American Status Quo, or a Creedence Clearwater Revival with beards; and the album 'Eliminator' spending over two years on the album chart, it looked like their time had come.'Gimme All Your Lovin'' is track 1 on this 18-track set (playing time nearly 73 minutes, which has to represent good value in anyone's book). That hefty smack on the drums and cutting guitar couldn't be anyone else, could it. Simplicity itself, and nearly 20 years later it still sounds fresh. Of course it couldn't last. It didn't take long for them to work the formula to death, and by the mid-90s they were more or less history.
Well, they may have become samey to the point of being tedious, and 'Sleeping Bag' was a poor attempt to rework the formula that did them little good in 1985 when everyone was expecting great things from 'Afterburner', the follow-up album to 'Eliminator'. But they were unparalleled in their class for a while, and 'Greatest Hits' is all the ZZ Top you'll ever need.From the much-covered 'Tush' to their cover of Elvis' 'Viva Las Vegas', a surprise Top 10 hit in 1992, from the bluesy 'My Head's In Mississippi' to the unashamedly un-PC dance floor filler 'Legs', from the cinematic sound of 'Doubleback' to the slower 'Rough Boy', they turned out some killer singles while the going was good. 'Sharp Dressed Man' still packs a punch, and 'La Grange', their first-ever US hit in 1973, is interesting to hear as an example of what they sounded like back in the 70s when they were still relatively new and unknown.
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