“We were shooting in California, but I still owed the builder $150,000,” the singer later recalled. Having successfully fused their down’n’dirty Texan boogie with sleek electronica, the band’s bid for global acceptance was given a further push by the song’s highly memorable video, in which a gas-station attendant gets taken for a ride by a trio of women driving the band’s vintage Eliminator car – a customised 30s Ford Coupe, which Gibbons had been trying to finance since 1976. This was one of the first tracks that started unfolding.”
“We had dabbled with the synthesiser, and then all this gear was showing up from manufacturers,” Gibbons recalled of writing Gimme All Your Lovin’ in 2015, telling Rolling Stone, “We threw caution to the winds. Arguably the group’s signature tine, this sure-fire smash went Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic and planted the band in the wider public consciousness. Unlikely as it may seem, Billy Gibbons’ interest in new-wave music and the era’s emerging synth-pop bands such as Depeche Mode shaped the sound of ZZ Top’s biggest-selling album, Eliminator, and one of the very best ZZ Top songs to come from it: Gimme All Your Lovin’. Recycler’s lead single – and arguably its high point – Doubleback also appeared in a different guise in director Robert Zemeckis’ Back To The Future Part III, in which ZZ Top performed a radically stripped-back country version of the song during their brief but memorable celluloid cameo.Ģ: Gimme All Your Lovin’ (from ‘Eliminator’, 1983) Recorded in Memphis, their next album, 1990’s Recycler, was something of a hybrid, with tracks such as My Head’s In Mississippi and 2000 Blues harking back to the band’s traditional sound, while the likes of Concrete And Steel and the anthemic Doubleback stuck to their tried and tested formula of hard rock embroidered with synths and electronic beats. Having established themselves as the most badass boogie merchants in the business during the 70s, ZZ Top updated their sound to startling effect by adding synths and sequencers to the mix on their 80s smashes, Eliminator and Afterburner. Despite Hill’s passing, in July 2021, the band is still very much together, and the ten best ZZ Top songs prove just why these hirsute Texans are the cat’s whiskers… Listen to the best of ZZ Top here, and check out our best ZZ Top songs, below. Indeed, with help from drummer Frank Beard, these guys cranked out some of the meanest rock music known to man since they first burst outta Houston in 1970. RSMUSIC.ZZ Top frontmen Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill’s famous chest-length beards have long shown that everything really is bigger and bolder in the Lone Star State of Texas. Check back for classic music videos, live performances, hand-curated playlists, the Rhino Podcast, and more! The vast Rhino catalog of more than 5,000 albums, videos, and hit songs features material by Warner Music Group artists such as Van Halen, Madonna, Duran Duran, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, The Doors, Chicago, Black Sabbath, John Coltrane, Yes, Alice Cooper, Linda Ronstadt, The Ramones, The Monkees, Carly Simon, and Curtis Mayfield, among many others. Founded in 1978, Rhino is the world's leading pop culture label specializing in classic rock, soul, and 80's and 90's alternative. RHINO is the official YouTube channel of the greatest music catalog in the world. 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart in 1985. You're watching the official music video for ZZ Top - "Sleeping Bag" from the album 'Afterburner'.