5 ZZ Top Songs That Prove 1983 Was The Best Year Of Their Career

In 1983, MTV ruled, and ZZ Top, a band from Texas that had been around since the late '60s, had somehow managed to plug into the video revolution with stunning results. Videos for songs such as "Gimme All Your Lovin'" that featured a tricked-out cherry-red 1933 Ford hot rod were in heavy rotation on the channel, making the heavily bearded guitarist and lead singer Billy Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill, along with the beardless drummer, Frank Beard, bona fide 1980s rock stars.

While ZZ Top had several hits over the years, we've zeroed in on 1983 thanks to their eighth studio album, the mighty "Eliminator," which was released that year. Sure, 1985's "Afterburner" may have had more high-charting tunes, but "Eliminator" sold twice as many copies and included the most Billboard Hot 100 songs for the band up to that time. But what really matters for us is that 1983 saw ZZ Top reinvent themselves with a new sound: The band incorporated synthesizers into their Texas boogie, blues, and rock music, releasing songs that defined 1980s Southern rock and launched them into the stratosphere with a huge tour and a new generation of fans.

So, we think there's no better way to demonstrate ZZ Top's supremacy in 1983 than with the four singles the band released from that year's "Eliminator," as well as "I Got the Six," a deep cut that remains a fan favorite.

"Legs" was a companion piece to an earlier tune, 1979's "A Fool for Your Stockings" from the album "Degüello." The tune showcased the band's new sound, incorporating a synthesizer played by Dusty Hill that gave the song a dance-rock edge, while remaining rooted in ZZ Top's boogie tradition. At the time, Billy Gibbons was obsessed with synth-heavy bands like Big Country and wanted to bring something similar to ZZ Top.

While "Legs" was off the 1983 "Eliminator" album, it didn't hit the charts until May 1984 and peaked at No. 8 two months later, becoming the band's highest-charting song. Its rise was helped along by the video, a 1980s retelling of Cinderella featuring the band's famous red hot rod, three young fairy godmothers, and a mistreated shoe shop employee who gets a makeover. The song may have hit its stride in 1984, but it began its journey a year earlier when ZZ Top was enjoying the best year of their career.

"Gimme All Your Lovin'" was the lead single off "Eliminator," and while it was barely a Top 40 hit, peaking at No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1983, it announced ZZ Top's new sleeker sound. The video, which introduced their famous red hot rod — the ZZ Top Eliminator — received massive MTV airplay. It was the Rolling Stones' "Emotional Rescue" from 1980 that inspired the song; Billy Gibbons wanted to figure out how to incorporate a more danceable sound into the band's music, turned to the Stones' tune for inspiration, and achieved the goal in spades.

With its opening drum beat, played at 120 bpm (suggested by production engineer Linden Hudson), and synth-rock backbone, it's utterly danceable. Even so, it retains ZZ Top's signature grinding blues-rock guitar that keeps it from becoming feeble. The drum machines and synths instead allowed Gibbons to explore with his guitar, creating a perfect union of dance music and rough-and-ready boogie-rock. It was a sound that helped turn ZZ Top into one of the biggest bands in the world in 1983.

Although "Sharp Dressed Man" only peaked at No. 56 in August 1983 after being released a month earlier, it remains a classic ZZ Top song and features some of Frank Beard's best drum work. The Tim Newman-directed video was part of the trilogy that included "Gimme All Your Lovin'" and "Legs" — all featuring the classic red Ford and triumvirate of models – and became an MTV staple. Newman later claimed he was partly responsible for the band's massive success. "I'm not a person who talks a lot about himself but with those videos, I helped take ZZ Top from a successful regional touring band to an international superstar band," he claimed in a 2020 Boston Globe interview.

Musically, "Sharp Dressed Man" continued the band's integration of their classic sound with an '80s synth-driven edge that was partly inspired by Depeche Mode, of whom Billy Gibbons was a fan. "That solo was truly the successful marriage of a techno beat with bar-band-blues style-overtones from the guitar department," Gibbons later recalled to Guitar School (via Classic Rock). 

ZZ Top never released "I Got the Six" as a single, but it's a deep cut from the 1983 LP "Eliminator," with Dusty Hill taking lead vocals for a change. The origins of this song go back nearly a decade earlier, when Billy Gibbons was in London at the height of the punk movement in 1977, and you can hear some of that energy on this track. It's a reprieve from the more synth-driven tunes of "Eliminator," and harks back to some of their earlier work.

Hill's tenor and propulsive singing style on "I Got the Six" also provides a contrast to Gibbons' grittier voice that dominates "Eliminator." It may not have been a hit, but it's a fast-paced tune with a lot to love, from Hill's vocal delivery to Gibbons' raw, hard-edged guitar sound inspired by his time in England — which was itself a big influence on ZZ Top's trajectory.

As the title suggests, ZZ Top's "TV Dinners" is an ode to one of America's favorite ready meals of the late 20th century. While the tune may have been inspired by cheap meals, a woman wearing a jumpsuit with the words "TV Dinners" on the back of her white jumpsuit was what actually inspired Billy Gibbons to pen the song.

Musically, the tune includes a funky keyboard and Gibbons' minimalist fuzzy guitar, featuring lyrics such as, "I like the enchiladas / And the teriyaki too / I even like the chicken / If the sauce is not too blue." Once again demonstrating how ZZ Top embraced the rise of MTV in 1983, the video for "TV Dinners" is as weird as the song and features a green stop-motion creature living inside a TV dinner.

"TV Dinners" failed to land on Billboard's Hot 100, but reached No. 38 on its Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. While it was by far the lowest-charting of the singles from "Eliminator," it remains one of their weirdest and funniest tunes, and still manages to rock.