The ZZ Top Albums Poll

Eliminator or Tres Hombres.

Tres Hombres gets me all Memorex every time, so that one of course

Eliminator all the way for me, but I do love this band.

(I still need to listen to La Futura)

the naked cynicism of using Afterburner and Recycler as album titles never fails to crack me up

I think it's something in the middle for me - Tejas vs. Tres Hombres vs. Deguello. Deguello was really the one that first got me excited about their pre-Eliminator catalog.

For me it's a tie between Tres Hombres and Deguello. Throughout their entire career a good rule of thumb has been: Spanish/Spanglish album title = more good songs than bad. English-language album title = the reverse is true.

... el iminator

Goddam, Tres Hombres may be one of the top 5 albums of all time, by anybody. Voting that. I lose the plot with these guys after Deguello

Deguello!

La Futura or Tres Hombres.

Interviewed Dusty and Billy last weekend. Absolute gentlemen. It was at the Virgin Freefest at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Halfway through the interview, Billy insisted we go stageside to watch the end of Jack White's set. Standing with Billy Gibbons watching JW do Seven Nation Army was proper can-this-be-real stuff.

!!

Deguello or Tres Hombres

wow ithappens!

am hoping someone gets me the vinyl of La Futura for my birthday

Tres Hombres

Move "Heard It On The X" off Fandango! to either Tres Hombres or Deguello and that's your winner right there.

Otherwise, I think "Waiting For The Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago" puts Tres Hombres over the top in a squeaker.

So you're saying that if Heard it on the X wasnt on Fandango, that Fandango would win? or that if it was on either of the other two, they would win? I assume the latter cuz its one of their best songs.

or that if it was on either of the other two, they would win?

this

I went with Deguello.

Hope El Loco and Mescalero get some votes, though. (Actually, a post-Eliminator poll might be interesting.)

Tempted to go Tejas...ON VINYL

it's true the Tejas vinyl is really nice

http://www.vinylrecords.ch/Z/ZZ_Top/Tejas/IMG_9151.jpg

For all you "Heard It On The X" fans out there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RooXi8OR0J0

tres hombres over deguello

I should really buy something from these guys.

We discussed Afterburner in the New Jersey thread. Have any of its singles been played again?

Only heard five of these but went with Tres Hombres, I should give some of the others a listen really.

I like Afterburner but yeah outside of "why am I hearing Sleeping Bag at CVS?" insanity I don't know why anything from it would make regular rotation on rock radio now

#1 mainstream rock chart hit for four weeks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwq_QW4nrUc

admittedly RCA had just spent $35 million to get the band so i'm sure the wheels couldn't have been any greasier

I was looking @ their wiki discography page, and was surprised to see how well they did on rock radio up through '96 or so.

Tres Hombres is so dope! What a great reason to listen to the rest of these guys' discography!

If you haven't bothered with La Futura yet, give it a go. It's excellent.

Thinking about buying a physical copy of La Futura at Best Buy - comes with two bonus tracks that aren't live leftovers or anything like that - they're actually good songs that could easily have made the album.

eager to get La Futura on the strength of 25 Lighters alone

"25 Lighters" is definitely the best song but if you like that one I can't imagine you would dislike much of the rest of the record. I really like the whole thing.

"Tres Hombres", then "Deguello"...I might actually stump for "Rio Grande Mud" as being a little bit slept on. The first first one is cool as well.

"why am I hearing Sleeping Bag at CVS?" insanity - i have experienced this! have also experienced the 'why am i hearing velcro fly in a nearly empty kroger at 3 in the morning' insanity

Obscure Singles Heard at CVS

Tres Hombres is just the perfect album title. As long as you're a three-piece.

La Futura is on Spotify, as it turns out. Kinda wish now that I'd not listened to it, assuming it was good, rather than be proven wrong.

...its not good?

it IS good!

man I cant parse anything, I'm mixing up MVP with VIP, I swear I'm three-quarters to El Loco myself

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Tres Hombres all the way, although Deguello is awfully close. Although, IMO what shoots TH over the top is the AMAZING gatefold.

http://www.thestranger.com/binary/f5dc/1288304885-tres_hombres_.jpg

Has to be Tres Hombres, but as people keep saying the new one is pretty amazing. They have way more classics than duds in their catalog.

That gatefold is one of my all-time faves, for sure

it has to be tres hombres, but i'm always kinda confused why ppl don't rate the first two albums, which are damn good too

Tejas is my sentimental favorite.

it has to be tres hombres, but i'm always kinda confused why ppl don't rate the first two albums, which are damn good too

― rap game klaus nomi (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, October 16, 2012 11:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed, the first two rule. Just Got Paid, Brown Sugar, Goin Down to Mexico. These are amazing songs.

Brown Sugar is my favorite ZZ Top song.

first two albums are very good but it's Terry Manning's work on Tres Hombres & the following records that give the songs the power punch

yeah I'm not a huge fan of La Grange but Tres Hombres has some monster album cuts (Master of Sparks, Precious and Grace, Hot Blue and Righteous)(the latter of which another answer to the question "did ZZ Top do any ballads?") but Deguellos has probably my favorite Top songs (Thank You, Bad/Nationwide, and Cheap fuckin Sunglasses!) so I voted taht

Shit I gotta play some ZZ Top on the radio tonight.

La Futura is on Spotify, as it turns out. Kinda wish now that I'd not listened to it, assuming it was good, rather than be proven wrong.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, October 11, 2012 7:13 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...its not good?

― skeevy wonder (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, October 13, 2012 9:44 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it IS good!

― some dude, Saturday, October 13, 2012 9:49 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Naw, I guess it's okay, but it sounds like a record they had to work on. It doesn't really come easily anymore. "Labored" is the term I'm looking for, I suppose. "Sluggish" would be another.

biggest thing that bothers me is billy's voice is so bad now...dusty sounds good still

Billy sounds great! His voice and guitar resonate with the same distorted fuzz. Y'all are crazy.

i'll have to listen again

btw the rio grande mud album cover is so awesome:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b4/ZZ_Top_-_Rio_Grande_Mud.jpg

El Loco album cover ftw

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

that margin surprises me.

Aw, Deguello! Margin surprises me, too...

Lovin the 3 Afterburner votes

how in the hell was "i'm bad i'm nationwide" not released as a single?

Have been giving a few more of these a go over the last week - Tejas is great, I love the eerie, dusky feel of stuff like 'El Diablo' and 'Asleep in the Desert'. Doesn't sound like a 1977 record at all somehow. On first impression, Fandango! is pretty good and the first two albums have moments of greatness but I wasn't as keen on Afterburner apart from 'Stages'.

I love Fandango! but the live half always ends up infuriating me that they never did a big time 70s live record

Seriously. That recent live-in-Germany-circa-1980 album is pretty good, but they had already tightened up significantly by then; much less sprawling boogie and more amped-up blues-funk.

That Rockpalast show is pretty amazing, IMO.

Thanks to this poll, I seriously got into El Loco over the past week. I still voted for Eliminator, because that's an ALL-TIME album for me, but I'd never really given El Loco its due before.

listening to La Futura now and at the very least it *sounds* really fucking good. I appreciate a quality guitar tone

This is a pretty righteous blowout

"Labored" is the term I'm looking for, I suppose. "Sluggish" would be another.

That was my initial impression too, but after a few more listens, La Futura has really grown on me. At first I was dismayed that they were working from the same John Lee Hooker riffs that they started out with, forty years ago... but the point is, no one works those riffs like ZZ Top do. And while the hum-along solos that so enlivened the Eliminator era are gone, Gibbons can still make a guitar snarl with the best of them. The guy's tone is just so rich and authoritative.

after one listen my opinion is that it's pretty great, fits very well into their discography/canon

i am completely and unapologetically obsessed with gotsta get paid.

Gotsta Get Paid will be topping my list in year end polls. Agree that the sound of La Futura is crucial, but the songs are good enough to back it up too. Gibbons' toxic gargling and dirty guitar are a pretty much perfect sonic combination IMO.

after a few umms' and ahh's in recent months i bought the box set.

(and a bargain bin copy of 'mescalero')

disc one spun, hitting disc two now ('just got paid' is 4 minutes of headfukery brilliance)

this is easily going to be the soundtrack of spring 2014.

Just Got Paid is one of the all time jams.

Been working my way through the box set over the past couple of months. Can't say I disagree with this poll; the first two albums have their moments, but they really hit their stride with Tres Hombres. That streak from Tres Hombres to Deguello is pretty unimpeachable.

Rio Grande Mud is perennially underrated

Tres Hombres

Tejas #1

Side 1 of Tres Hombres is perfect, but aside from "La Grange" (and as awesome as that song is I could never hear it again and it would be too soon), side 2 is a snooze.

Song for song, Rio Grande Mud is maybe even easily the best imo

Also never really got the love for Deguello but I'm still trying with that one

For me it's Degüello > Tres Hombres > Tejas > Rio Grande Mud > ZZ Top's First Album, but it's damn close to a five-way tie and rankings are subject to change more or less hourly.