~|I don't care maybe if I could.
Deal the shuffle in the cards,
Don't have to work that hard.
It's too easy, it's too easy to feel good.|~
Hey everyone! Okay so first things first, I noticed yesterday that I can't do numbers that well, I seem to have miscounted the letters and forgot to update appropriately in the header. So this is indeed the final and 26th letter of the alphabet, Z. There aren't many artists in my collection on this one either, so we'll go with the bearded bluesians, ZZ Top.
Starting out in the start of the 70s, they're still touring and releasing almost 50 years later. Mostly recognized for their majestic beards, they also have some groovy music worth checking out if you find yourself hammering your gas down a lone desert highway.
ZZ Top usually has a very minimalistic band set up, often just a guitar, drums and bass live, however they manage to write tunes that can't help but get you moving. Their style has a blues rock feel that never fails to make it feel like you're in the middle of a car chase with the fuzz on your heels. We'll start off with their 3rd record, "Tres Hombres"
Tres Hombres
Coming out in 1973, this record delivers a collection of blues tracks that feature a tight rythm and a melancholic lyricism mixed with a good sense of humor. The album opens with "Waitin' for the bus", a track that has a real feel of sitting down waiting for something to come along to change up the scenery, with a jam out between a guitar and harmonica that sets the tone for the album.
Other tracks like "Hot Blue and Righteous" are more slow blues ballads of melancholic longing. This chord progression in this track almost makes me get the sort of guitar based R&B vibe you'd get from Prince(specifically the track purple rain). It's a great solemn tune to take a breather on this album of otherwise high octane blues.
The track we're gonna start off with today is probably my favorite on the record, with it's fuel guzzling machinery blasting down into the sunset, heading to that place called "La Grange"
La Grange
Eliminator
Eliminator is the groups 8th album, and it shows how they've evolved their sound to a more clean production. Starting off with "Gimme All Your Lovin'" this album has the huge arena feel you often heard in bands from the 80s. It's loud, big and flashy, compared to the previous record we checked out. This is likely an example of the evolution of the music industry during the time, in the early beginnings of the loudness war.
This album also features tracks like "Legs", which utilizes a synth lead in addition to the otherwise traditional instrumentation. Other tracks like "I Need You Tonight" is another blues ballad of longing for something lost to time.
For the 2nd track today we gotta go with "Gimme All Your Lovin'". It's an iconic track for the band, and a classic track for those into blues rock.
Gimme All Your Lovin'
La Futura
La Futura is the groups most recent album, and 50 years later they still keep it going strong. However you can hear on their sound that time has taken a toll, but in a way it adds a lot to the charm of their music. A bit like Tom Waits slowly rusting voice, ZZ Top give their amps a solid kick and get going again. The music production is high, but we can hear a clear difference from the style, shying away from the arena rock, for more experimental blues.
The album opens with the relatable track "I Gotsta Get Paid", a grimey blues jam, with an almost tangible sound to it. Other tracks like "Hearthache In The Blue" are more traditional blues jams, drawing influences from more melodic rock tracks in the chord progressions. The sound almost goes into the realms of stoner rock at times, especially on the track "It's Too Easy Mañana", which goes into this psychedelic realm eventually.
For our final track we'll check out that opening track "I Gotsta Get Paid", as it's fitting to our current situation. We all trying to get paid, someway or other!
I Gotsta Get Paid
Okay folks, so that's it for this round around the alphabet! I hope you've enjoyed it so far I know I have, and I wanna thank everyone who is following me, I breached the 100 follower mark a little more than a month after joining steemit!! 😀 We're gonna do another round, once again starting from A. But we'll leave that for tomorrow. If you have any suggestions for how I can improve, hit me up! And if you wanna keep up to date just follow me for more daily music content!
You can get more info or support the artist by checking out these links:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/113655-ZZ-Top
http://www.zztop.com
