http://open.spotify.com/album/0Em8m9kRctyH9S3MTXAHvYAaaaaaaaaaaah ZZ Top, the Topmeisters, the Zizous, Zizop or just simply 'The Top', it doesn't matter how many nicknames you make up for them on the spot, for some strange reason they just kick all kinds of ass don't they?
It's the beards isn't it? It's those long, lucious, tick-fostering belly button ticklers for which you'd walk over hot coals just just to poke with a tiny stick while squealing 'BEARDY BEARDY BEADY!' to yourself. Just me?
And guess what the only one without a beard's called? Go On? have a guess which one of ZZ Top is the only one not to have a BEARD while both the other two BEARDed gentlemen quite clearly have BEARDs??? Give up? It's Sylvester Cunningham...
I jest of course! it's Frank BEARD! Oh praise the lord for such bountiful gifts!
Of course, I'm under no illusions as to what this album will be like; I can only remember ever hearing three ZZ Top songs- 'La Grange', which is fucking brilliant, 'Gimme all your loving, which isn't, and 'Sharp dressed Man', which I can't actually remember very much at all, and I've braced myself for 'Tres Hombres' being 'La grange' plus 9 other songs which aren't as good as 'La grange' but sound remarkably similar. I mean c'mon, they're one misjudged hair-replacement advert away from being the American Status Quo, but I love them all the same, and this is at least going to be fun.
00:43 I'll be honest, I didn't expect my first thought to be 'Hmmmm, 'Love is the drug' by Roxy Music', that Bryan Ferry is a thieving Charlaton! And a massive tit too, but I'm sure there'll be time for that later...
03:06 I have a sudden urge to go out and buy a Stetson and some tight Levis Strauss...
04:41 Thankfully, on the basis of the albums first two tracks, the band seem to have packed the tunes as well as the boogie into that cow-skin suitcase of their's. Is that a melody I hear?
06:22 I have it on good authority that Billy Gibbons rider includes two big cow-pies, with the antlers coming out of the pastry and everything. Oh, and a mechanical bull, otherwise he's just not going on stage
08:10 This isn't quite as exciting as a song called 'Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers' should be, but it's hard to supress an urge to grab a nearby tennis racket and pose in front of the mirror
08:35 Isn't cow pie just steak pie?? That Desperate Dan's a fucking bullshitter if you ask me, you wouldn't call your sausages 'pig-tubes' would you?
09:34 From now on I'm calling all my sausages 'pig-tubes'
10:21 Shock! AC/DC nicked the riff off 'Shoot to Thrill' straight from 'Master of Sparks'! Everything I believe is wrong...
12:54 Listening to 'Master of Sparks', the similarities to Queens of the Stone Age become a lot more apparant and you begin to understand why Josh Homme rates the band so highly,
13:26 It's a sign of the times that I read 'Hot, Blue and Righteous' as 'Hot, Blue and Ringtones'
14:20 The song itself however is a slight and unfortunate right turn toward 'dad-rock'. It also sounds a lot like the more, ahem, 'radio-friendly' songs on the last Kings of Leon album
17:17 'Move Me On Down the Line' = The Foo Fighters. This is fun, like an FM rock word association game
18:42 Billy Gibbons was Jimi Hendrix's favourite guitarist, funnily enough
19:58 'Precious and Grace' brings up predictable nausea that I get every time I hear something resembling a Red Hot Chilli Peppers song
22:34 'La Grange' is such a brilliant song, the aural equilavalent of a silver Jack Daniels belt buckle worn by Robert Mitchum.
25:39 None of the songs here outstay their welcome by a second, which I can imagine getting more and more rare the deeper I get into the 70s
27:24 Pork chops are 'pig-hammers', gammon's a 'pig-frisbee'
28:18 Two minutes in, 'Shiek' hasn't quite decided what it wants to do yet. It might want to hurry up
33:35 The slight anti-climax of 'Have you Heard' and it's by-the-numbers boogie comes to a close, and it's time at the bar gentlemen please.
A pleasant surprise, if I'm being honest, while the wheel remains resolutely un-reinvented, it's a simple, unpretentious collection of very decent songs, and, may this may sound ridiculous considering it's little more than classic American barband blues, there was actually a lot more variety than I was expecting. easily the first album I've listened to on this list whioch I might imagine being one of the best 500 of all time. 1000 at least...
And besides, it's over in half an hour, so even if you hate it it'll be finished before you know it
B
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