ZZ Top

After a diversion into the la-la land of MTV stardom -- and some popular, if somewhat unwelcome, synth infusions -- Recycler brought back the vintage Tres Hombres blues rock, highlighting vintage Gibbons in one throbbing, machismo rocker after the next. The best of these are the sleaziest ones ("Penthouse Strut," "Burger Man," "Love Thing"), which are based on billboard riffing and decorated with equally huge solos, but the surreal storytelling of "My Head's in Mississippi" is a classic.

During most of the Eighties, Billy Gibbons was trapped in an entertainment-industry twilight
zone. ZZ Top's guitarist, vocalist and spiritual leader was living in two worlds: the
blues-drenched landscape of his musical imagination and the alternate universe of his
group's mass pop appeal – an appeal created in large part by his diabolic genius for
irresistible videos. Gibbons sold the boogie like nobody since John Lee Hooker,... More >