Greatest Hits - ZZ Top (CD 1992)

You may remember this band as the two bearded dudes, with synchronized side to side guitar moves, shades, hats and long trench coats along with one normal looking guy. You may remember them for the three eye candy Vargas-girl videos from the 1980's: Legs, Sharp Dressed Man and Give Me All Your Lovin', along with the snazzy namesake hotrod, Eliminator. Or you may recall a genuine phenom: the roots blues-rock band that sprang, straight from the El Paso, Texas hardpan in 1970. Guitar wizard, Billy Gibbons, originally with Houston bar band, Moving Sidewalk, was able to overcome past rivalry and...

As far as I'm concerned, "white boy" blues can be divided into two camps. The first one is occupied by a bunch of nervous types who like to "slum it" from time to time and mimic the old blues masters from places like Chicago, St. Louis and the rural South. The second camp is where bands like ZZ Top thrive. In that camp, you've got some artists who play the blues like they love it, and manage to create new dimensions to that aging form of music. ZZ Top, simply put, plays gritty, hard blues with a Texas twang added in for good measure. This album represents a good look at the career of that...

ZZ Top is one band that has more or less stuck to what they do best since the beginning. Apart from the addition of synthesizers in the early 80s, they haven't really changed since their beginning in the 70s. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some bands do best at carving out a niche and sticking to it and ZZ Top falls into that category. Add all that up and one ZZ Top disc is all anyone but the most hardcore fan really needs. Greatest Hits definitely fits the bill in that regard, as it adds together their early 70s blues-based rock and their 80s blues-rock with synthesizers for a good..

After listening to ZZ top for years on the radio, I finally broke down and bought their greatest hits CD. Since music is such a subjective field, I'll try to show you why ZZ Top and this album are worth listening to, even if you have to cover your grandma's ears. First (and no, I have no high-end music training past two years of college marching band), ZZ Top's guitars, bass, and drums always seem to lay down a steady lick without sounding repetitious or boring. They define "classic" in the sense of the best examples of melody and rhythm, rather than "I don't know what to write for this line,.