Eliminator

This article deals with the album of the band ZZ Top, for the thrash metal band see Eliminator (band) .

Eliminator
Studio album by ZZ Top
Publication (s)	March 23, 1983
Label (s)	Warner bros.
Genre (s)	Blues rock , hard rock
Title (number)	11
running time	44min 28s
occupation	Billy Gibbons : vocals , guitar Dusty Hill : vocals, bass Frank Beard : drums
production	Bill Ham
Studio (s)	Ardent Studios
chronology El Loco 1981 Eliminator Afterburner 1985
Single releases April 1983 Gimme All Your Lovin ' May 1983 Got Me Under Pressure July 1983 Sharp Dressed Man Dec 1983 TV dinners May 1984 Legs

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Eliminator   DE 25th 05/02/1983 (44 weeks)   CH 11 11/06/1983 (20 weeks)   UK 3 04/30/1983 (137 weeks)   US 9 04/23/1983 (183 weeks)

Singles

Gimme All Your Lovin '   UK 10 08/27/1983 (21 weeks)   US 37 04/02/1983 (12 weeks) Sharp Dressed Man   UK 22nd 11/26/1983 (14 weeks)   US 56 07/23/1983 (9 weeks) TV dinners   UK 67 March 31, 1984 (3 weeks) Legs   UK 16 02/23/1985 (7 weeks)   US 8th 05/19/1984 (19 weeks)

Eliminator is the eighth album by the American blues rock band ZZ Top . It was released in March 1983 by Warner Bros. Records . The album is the band's most commercially successful album to date; it received ten times platinum (“Diamond Award”) in the USA for 10 million units sold. The music magazine Rolling Stone ranks it 398 on its list of the 500 best albums of all time . The guitar solo for Sharp Dressed Man was voted 43rd best guitar solos by the music magazine Guitar World 2008 . For the songs Legs and Sharp Dressed Man , ZZ Top were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 .

Recordings

In contrast to the recordings for previous albums, the studio stays did not take place during an ongoing tour . In 1982 the band went to their "second home" Memphis , Tennessee , to make some recordings in the Ardent Studios , which later became the Eliminator Sessions . In addition to these studio recordings, the band used the free time to collect ideas for their pieces. This is how TV Dinners came about when visiting the Green Parrot , a nightclub in Memphis. The melody was already finished, but the song had neither a name nor a text when the band read this phrase on the overalls of a visitor. They didn't know what the words mean, but found them interesting and decided to call the song that. The idea for Legs (German: "legs") is based on an experience by Billy Gibbons. When he saw an attractive woman across the street, he turned his car to speak to her. In the meantime, however, she had moved across the street, so Billy Gibbons said, “She has legs and she knows how to use them.” While in Memphis, the band took part in a fitness program, with Neil Cordell of the Peabody Hotel Health Club working out every morning two hours with the musicians before they went into the studio.

Musically, the band showed itself under the impression of punk rock that they had got to know in London . Influenced by the creative inventiveness of English synth-pop bands, the use of synthesizers also seemed an interesting option for the musicians . In Billy Gibbons' opinion the synthesizer part of the music was still quite economical compared to bands like Van Halen and their song Jump . In retrospect, this mixture was the recipe for success for the album.

The "Eliminator Car"

The "Eliminator Car"

A hot rod is shown from the front on the record cover . The original of this vehicle called "Eliminator Car" built Don Thelan 1983 on behalf of Billy Gibbons based on a 1933er Ford - Coupe , who wanted to use it as a symbol for the next album. The flamed band logo came from Kenny Youngblood. Since then, the car has been one of the most off-road hot rods featured on television. Since ZZ Top took the original vehicle on tour , it was heavily used, so Billy Gibbons hired Chuck Lombardo of California Street Rods to build a copy. Although the body was made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic , the outside of the copy was no different from the original. Billy Gibbons also used the copy as a road vehicle.

Track list

1. Gimme All Your Lovin ' - 4:03
2. Got Me Under Pressure - 4:02
3. Sharp Dressed Man - 4:18
4. I Need You Tonight - 6:16
5. I Got the Six - 2:54
6. Legs - 4:31
7. Thug - 4:19
8. TV Dinners - 3:50
9. Dirty Dog - 4:06
10. If I Could Only Flag Her Down - 3:39
11. Bad Girl - 3:16

All titles were written by Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard.

reception

In a contemporary review in Rolling Stone, the reviewer says the album tells the typical story of a man who plunges into the Houston nightlife to find a wife for one night. He's ate sensibly ( TV Dinners ), wears the right clothes ( Sharp Dressed Man ), and has the right car and attitude ( Gimme All Your Lovin ). The next morning he realizes that everything was going too fast ( Bad Girl ) and gives her unflattering names ( Dirty Dog ). Stephen Thomas Erlewine highlights the album's hit potential, Gimme All Your Lovin ' , Sharp Dressed Man and Legs were the greatest singles since Tres Hombres . Because of the songs alone, the album is one of the three best from ZZ Top, but the use of the synthesizers and sequencers hit the zeitgeist and made Eliminator a sales success. However, Erlewine points out that the old fans from the blues-rock times certainly did not like the album unreservedly. Frank Albrecht from Rock Hard described the album as "packed with hits [e] ... awesome record, which you simply can't sit still when you listen to it"; the magazine voted Eliminator 2007 number 271 of the editors' opinion of the best 500 rock and metal albums.

Sales figures and awards

Country / Region	Award	Sales
Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales)
Australia (ARIA)	4 × platinum	280,000
Germany (BVMI)	3 × gold	750,000
Finland (IFPI)	platinum	71.121
France (SNEP)	2 × platinum	600,000
Canada (MC)	diamond	1,000,000
New Zealand (RMNZ)	platinum	15,000
Austria (IFPI)	gold	25,000
United States (RIAA)	diamond	10,000,000
United Kingdom (BPI)	4 × platinum	1,200,000
All in all	2 × gold 15 × platinum 2 × diamond	13,941,121

Main article: ZZ Top / Music Sales Awards

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Sources chart placements: DE1 / DE2 / CH / UK / US , accessed on March 24, 2010.
2. ↑ US singles: Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-2006. Billboard Books, New York 2007, ISBN 0-89820-172-1 . / US albums: The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .
3. ↑ Certifications: ZZ Top - Eliminator. RIAA, accessed March 25, 2010 . 
4. ↑ 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: ZZ Top, 'Eliminator'. Rolling Stone Magazine, May 25, 2012, accessed April 16, 2014 . 
5. ↑ 100 Greatest Guitar Solos: 43) "Sharp Dressed Man" (Billy Gibbons). (No longer available online.) Guitar World, October 30, 2008, archived from the original on July 26, 2010 ; accessed on March 26, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Prince inducted into the Hall of Fame . RP Online, March 16, 2004
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} Billy Gibbons Pt. 2: Making Eliminator, Partying in Memphis, the Stories of “Legs” and “Under Pressure”, ZZ Top and Punk Rock, “Texas Music”, etc. Rocks Off, October 6, 2008, accessed March 26, 2010 ( English). 
8. ↑ Glenn O'Brien : Life at the Top . In: Spin Magazine . February 1986, p. 42 .
9. ↑ ^{a b} Steven Rosen: ZZ Top: From A to ZZ. (No longer available online.) Guitar World, October 22, 2009, archived from the original on June 19, 2010 ; accessed on March 20, 2010 (English). 
10. ↑ ^{a b} Bo Bertilsson: Classic Hot Rods . MotorBooks / MBI, 1999, ISBN 978-0-7603-0721-2 , pp. 60 f .
11. ↑ Steve Pond: ZZ Top: Eliminator . In: Rolling Stone . May 12, 1983.
12. ^ Frank Albrecht: ZZ TOP: Eliminator . In: Rock Hard (Ed.): Best of Rock & Metal . Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2007, ISBN 978-3-89880-517-9 , pp. 105 .

Web links

• Eliminator at Allmusic (English)