ZZ Top Eliminator: Collector's Edition CD

ELIMINATOR, with its churning guitars and synthesizer hooks, was on the album charts for over a year, and had hits with "Sharp Dressed Man," "Gimme All Your Lovin'" and "Legs." The album and its accompanying videos were ubiquitous in 1983, on television ZZ Top was seen on MTV, "St. Elsewhere," even on the Tonight show.

1983 was the year Z.Z. Top went from being everyone's favourite bar-room boogie band to international superstars. Graced with mind-boggling and incredibly photogenic beards, a very neat trilogy of sexy videos and a collective ear for a quite distinct and highly stylized, if somewhat grizzled blues/pop, the sudden enormity of their success seems in retrospect like no real surprise. MTV had never quite seen the like and the attention given to the excellent 'Gimme All Your Lovin" single was quickly repeated for both 'Sharp-Dressed Man' and the quite irreverent 'Legs'. It still sounds fresh, innovative and fun today. in the wake of many imitators.

This 1983 masterpiece album illustrates their cultural evolution - fired up with boogie and synths. The CD includes the original album plus rare and previously unreleased bonus tracks, including live versions songs in November 1983 and all previously unreleased. The DVD features all four album videos plus 4 songs played live on the UK's The Tube in November 1983, all previously unreleased. Included in this special collector's edition is a 20-page book with new liner notes.

Issued by Rhino Records in 2008, this collector's edition of ZZ Top's blockbuster 1983 album, ELIMINATOR, appends the original outing with a number of previously unreleased concert tracks and a DVD of live performances and the band's wildly popular videos. Standout selections include raucous stage versions of "Gimme All Your Lovin" and "Sharp Dressed Man."

1. Gimme All Your Lovin'

2. Sharp Dressed Man

4. TV Dinners

Live on 'The Tube' - 11/17/83

5. Got Me Under Pressure

6. Gimme All Your Lovin'

7. Sharp Dressed Man

8. Tube Snake Boogie

ZZ Top: Billy Gibbons (vocals, guitar); Dusty Hill (vocals, bass guitar); Frank Beard (drums).

Audio Remasterer: Patrick Kraus.

DVD Features:

ZZ Top: Billy Gibbons (guitar, vocals); Dusty Hill (bass, synthesizers, vocals); Frank Beard (drums, percussion).

The Videos:

3. Legs

Rolling Stone (p.72) - 4.5 stars out of 5 -- "[A] landmark blend of traditional Texan boogie blues, New Wave synths and disco-steady beats that sold over 10 million U.S. units."
Rolling Stone (11/89) - Voted #39 in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Albums Of The Eighties" survey.
Mojo (Publisher) (p.119) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Utilising synthesizers to update their gritty, Texas-style blues and boogie, they delivered deluxe drive-time rock..."
Blender (Magazine) (p.84) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[A] densely layered, dance-beat-driven juggernaut whose spitting midrange sounded like an industrial-strength lawn sprinkler."