Music / Eliminator (ZZ Top album)

Gimme all your lovin', all your hugs and kisses too...

Eliminator is ZZ Top's eighth album, released on March 23, 1983. Probably the Texan band's most famous and critically acclaimed album, it sees the trio further expand on the synthesizer sounds from their previous release. 1981's El Loco.

Production started a year before release, in 1982 - inside Frank Beard's house in Houston, before Gibbons headed to Memphis, Tennessee to complete the work. Linden Hudson, the producer that lived alongside Beard in his house, had drawn the band's attention towards synthesizers and drum machines, to the point that Hill and Beard themselves contributed little in the album's final recording.

Eliminator sold over 10 million copies, and its success can also be attributed to multiple music videos that received heavy rotation on television.

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Tracklist:

1. "Gimme All Your Lovin'"
2. "Got Me Under Pressure"
3. "Sharp Dressed Man" (the Trope Namers)
4. "I Need You Tonight"
5. "I Got The Six"
6. "Legs"
7. "Thug"
8. "TV Dinners"
9. "Dirty Dog"
10. "If Only I Could Flag Her Down"
11. "Bad Girl"

"She's got tropes, and she knows how to use 'em":

• All Women Are Lustful: "Got Me Under Pressure" takes this to sick extremes.
  "She likes whips and chains
  She likes cocaine
  And flipping out with Great Danes"
• Auto Erotica: "Got Me Under Pressure"
  "But she won't let me use my passion
  Unless it's in a limousine"
• Changed for the Video: The video version of "Legs" differs from the album version in that it has a different intro as well as backing vocals and some added instruments.
• Cool Car: The Eliminator Car, a modified 1933 Ford Coupe, which appears not only in the cover but also in several of the band's music videos.
• Food Songs Are Funny: "TV Dinners"
• Intercourse with You: The majority of the album, but especially "Gimme All Your Lovin'".
• It Came from the Fridge: A little monster appears from out of a person's TV dinner in the video for "TV Dinners" to wreak havoc.
• Leg Focus: The song "Legs" is unsurprising, a song about finding a woman's legs attractive.
  She's got legs, she knows how to use them.
  She never begs, she knows how to choose them.
• New Sound Album: The band further fleshes out their use of synthesizers in this album.

• Space Whale Aesop: Fanservice aside, the message of the video for "Legs" appears to be, "Be nice to people, or ZZ Top and three hot women will magically show up and rescue those people you mistreated and make you pay for the bad things you did to them."