ZZ Top: Eliminator (yellow vinyl) [RHINO]

Why you'll love it

This Rocktober pressing puts Eliminator on opaque yellow vinyl. It is ZZ Top's biggest album, with 11 million sold and diamond certification in the US, and Rolling Stone placed it at No. 398 on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

This edition

• Yellow vinyl

About the album

Three Texans with a famous fondness for boogie walked into the synthesizer age and came out with the biggest record of their lives. Billy Gibbons had been nudging the band toward new wave since El Loco, and for Eliminator he sped things up, brought in drum machines and keyboards and set much of the album near the dance-floor sweet spot of 124 beats per minute, with Bill Ham producing and Terry Manning engineering at Ardent Studios in Memphis.

The guitar still does the talking. "Gimme All Your Lovin'" rides a relentless chug, "Sharp Dressed Man" became a wardrobe anthem, and "Legs" turned a synth pulse into the band's most successful single. "Got Me Under Pressure" and "I Need You Tonight" show the bluesier side, while "TV Dinners" is a wry little tune about exactly what it says.

The customized 1933 Ford coupe on the cover drove straight into the MTV videos, and "Legs" won the band the MTV Video Music Award for Best Group. It turned three bearded blues rockers into heroes for a whole new generation, which is impressive going for chaps who spent much of the decade in sunglasses indoors.

Also at Kops: more ZZ Top on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Rhino (cat# RCV5 23774), a reissue of the 1983 album.