Eliminator (1983)

Eliminator is the eighth studio album by American rock band ZZ Top. It was released on March 23, 1983, by Warner Bros. Records, and rose high on the charts in many countries. Four hit singles were released—"Gimme All Your Lovin'" which reached the American Top 40, "Sharp Dressed Man", "TV Dinners" and their most successful single, "Legs". Eliminator is ZZ Top's most commercially successful release, with sales of 11 million and diamond certification in the US.

Since El Loco in 1981, the bandleader, Billy Gibbons, had been moving ZZ Top's boogie and blues rock style towards the popular new wave style. For Eliminator, he increased the tempo and used more synthesizers and drum machines, producing a "tighter" album with a steady, driving beat. The pre-production engineer Linden Hudson collaborated with Gibbons in Texas on the tempo and songs. The producer Bill Ham and the engineer Terry Manning joined Gibbons in Memphis, Tennessee, to edit the songs, replacing much of the contributions of bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard. Ham claimed the album was solely the work of ZZ Top, but in 1986 Hudson won a lawsuit establishing himself as composer of the song "Thug".

Music videos for "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs" received regular rotation on MTV and helped ZZ Top gain popularity with a younger base. A customized 1933 Ford coupe, depicted on the album cover, appeared in the videos. Following Eliminator's release, ZZ Top embarked on a worldwide concert tour.

The video for "Legs" earned the band the MTV Video Music Award for Best Group. Rolling Stone named Eliminator number 398 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was listed at number 39 in The 100 Greatest Albums of the 80s, and it was also included in Robert Dimery's book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. A remastered version was released in 2008.

Background

In 1978, ZZ Top went on hiatus, weary of constant touring. Bandleader and guitarist Billy Gibbons traveled around Europe, and bassist Dusty Hill vacationed in Mexico; both grew their beards longer. Drummer Frank Beard checked into Palmer Drug Abuse Program, a Houston detox community, for his addiction to hard narcotics. To help finance Palmer, Beard organized a benefit concert and an album titled Freeway, working with engineers Steve Ames and Linden Hudson at Rampart Studios in Houston. After signing to Warner Bros. Records, ZZ Top released Degüello in 1979, which was certified platinum in early 1980.

In 1979, Beard bought a large house in Quail Valley outside Houston, overlooking a golf course where he often played as a way to stay off drugs. Beard invited Hudson to move in and construct a recording studio in his home for ZZ Top. Hudson designed the studio and oversaw its construction, centered on an isolation booth holding Beard's drum kit, with more booths for guitar and bass amplifiers. Microphone signals ran through the mixing console and some outboard gear to a semi-pro 1-inch 16-track Tascam tape recorder.

In 1980, ZZ Top used the studio to work on material for their next album, El Loco. Hudson played on several demos, including a synth line on "Groovy Little Hippie Pad", which was mixed into the album by ZZ Top's engineer Terry Manning. Hudson was not credited but was promised future compensation. Hudson also introduced Gibbons to drum machines during these rehearsals. Gibbons later called Hudson "an influential associate... a gifted songwriter... He brought some elements to the forefront that helped reshape what ZZ Top were doing, starting in the studio and eventually to the live stage."

From this point, ZZ Top was unable to reproduce certain songs in concert without using backing tracks. They carried a small tape player to each concert, with a technician hitting the "play" button to give Beard a click track cue in his headphones. The tape held synthesizer parts, drum samples and other elements. None of this was made public; Bill Ham, ZZ Top's manager, controlled their image to create a "mystique" of self-sufficiency and authenticity.

Recording

Gibbons was inspired by British electronic acts such as Depeche Mode and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark to explore electronic music technology. He often spoke with Hudson about new ideas in music. A former radio DJ, Hudson presented Gibbons with personal research showing that many hit songs were clustered near a tempo of 124 beats per minute—faster than ZZ Top's normal practice. Gibbons followed suit with most of Eliminator, setting the new pace with drum machines. "Legs" and "Sharp Dressed Man" are both 125 bpm while "Gimme All Your Lovin'" runs at 120. Gibbons said in 2012 that he first used a drum machine on Eliminator—the first album on which ZZ Top "paid serious attention" to timing and tempo, which was "timed and tuned very tight".