37. Eliminator by ZZ Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae829mFAGGE&list=OLAK5uy_lNkF0KnpICFVl079NmbTulL2wPaAexiVU
Toward the end of my junior year in high school, ZZ Top entered the charts with "Gimme All Your Lovin'," and over a year later after high school graduation, the album was still on the charts in the summer of '84 with "Legs." Other charting songs off the album included "Got Me Under Pressure," "TV Dinners," and the MTV monster video hit "Sharp Dressed Man." So, yeah, this album is definitely a big part of the senior year soundtrack.
Strangely enough, one of the reasons I think it lasted so long on the charts is that none of the songs were big hits as far as chart-topping singles. That means that people didn't tire of hearing a bunch of songs from the same album all charting at the same time. Instead of getting cooked really fast on high heat on a front burner, this album sat slowly simmering away on the back burner.
I didn't buy this album in high school, partly because I didn't want to experience the supreme embarrassment of having my sisters and mother ask about the appropriateness of the very unsubtle lyrics on "I Got the Six." But I did get a copy of the album from my brother-in-law after returning home from Sweden. I found that while I still enjoyed listening to the hit songs the most, the other songs had a pretty consistent quality with that signature ZZ Top sound.
In a lot of ways, ZZ Top is a lot like another of my favorite bands, ACDC. They pretty much stick with one kind of music that works for them, and they don't stray too far away from that Texas Roadhouse formula. When Eliminator came out, some people criticized the group for using synthesizers and drum machines on it. But I think the essence of the band's sound is still there. I mean, you don't hear any song off this album and think, "Hey, is this a New Wave song from some English group with androgynous costumes and strange hairdos?" No, you think, "This sounds like those two guys with long beards form ZZ Top."
It was because of this album that I decided to give other ZZ Top songs a listen whenever they came on the radio. And that's why "La Grange" ended up being the only ZZ Top song on my Top 200 song list, even though the album Tres Hombres predates Eliminator by a full decade.
It's the combination of all of the ZZ Top hit songs together--and the fact that all of those songs remind me of my high school years--that make this a Top 60 album, whereas no single song from this album made it onto my Top 200 list. But if I had to choose one song from this album as my favorite, it would have to be "TV Dinners," what with all those clever lyrics, including the best line of all, "I even like the chicken if the sauce is not too blue." That's the kind of lyric that lets you know this band is all about having fun, even though their music tends to sound like something that you would hear while two bikers in black leather jackets get into a fistfight, and one of them pulls out a switchblade, to which the other grabs a beer bottle and breaks off the bottom on the bar counter, and then the whole place erupts into an all-out brawl, but the band never stops playing.
Nardo
Whenever I think of "Eliminator," I always also think of the album "The Crossing" by Big Country. That may seem odd, because ZZ Top and Big Country don't exactly seem to go together. But, they did to my cousin Jeff. He's my guitar-playing, lawyer cousin. He was my favorite first cousin, and a big influence on my pop cultural tastes. His stories of Iron Man and the Fantastic Four intrigued me enough that I sought out those comic books and was soon hooked for life. He also was a big fan of ELO. (He was able to see Jeff Lynne's ELO in concert a couple of years ago up in the Seattle area, and I was happy for him and officially jealous.) One year, for Christmas, Jeff gave me one of those extra-long cassette tapes, and on one side was the "Eliminator" album in its entirety, and the other side was "The Crossing" by Big Country. I would listen to the ZZ Top side, then listen to the first half of the Big Country side before sometimes fast forwarding through the rest of the album. So, "In a Big Country" and "Fields of Fire" are two of my favorite songs that I associate with "Eliminator." ("TV Dinners was my favorite, too, along with "Dirty Dog," which was a great diss track for all of those girls who done me wrong, even though they never actually dissed me because I never had the guts to ever so much as speak to them.)
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that comes to mind when listening to "Eliminator" is staying up to watch "Friday Night Videos." We didn't have access to MTV, so the best we could do was the one hour of the NBC show that featured the latest music videos. (It didn't hurt that I "had" to watch all of Letterman before "Friday Night Videos" came on.)
Looking at the videos from this album now is quite the hoot. Wish-fulfillment much? Being rescued from a mundane, humdrum life by three cool guys with a great car and a bunch of beautiful, gyrating women? Yes, that's the stuff of dreams for high school boys. What's that? You're giving ME the keys to this cool car? And all these attractive women are going to get in the car with me? And they'll be running their hands through my hair? Maybe, just maybe, if I listen to enough ZZ Top songs those guys will show up, do their little choreographed finger point at me, and rescue me from this tractor.