Customer Review(s)
Customer Rating: 
Summary: I love ZZ Top but do NOT love 'futurized' ZZ Top [Not Remastered]
Comment: When ZZ Top's music was first put onto cd all of their material from 1970 to 1981 (except Deguello) was 'figurized' with reverb added and drums remixed. The thought was that they would need to tweak them slightly to get people to buy them who had already bought their albums on vinyl.
So, pretty much everything here is not what ZZ Top actually put on record. After listening to it for years and years many people might think so. The only albums that have been remastered and sound like their original selves is Tres Hombres and Fandango. Also, there is Rancho Texicano: The Very Best of ZZ Top (2 disc) and Chrome, Smoke & BBQ [Box Set]. Every track found on Rancho Texicano is also on the box set.
And that's it. Greatest Hits, One Foot In The Blues, ZZ Top Six Pack and all the main albums from 1970 to 1981 (minus the 2 remasters + 1 Deguello (unremastered still but un-futurized too) are not worth buying at all. You get 75 - 80% of all those albums on the box set anyway. Eventually, these albums will be re-released and they will lose their futurized imperfections. That will be a great day!
Customer Rating: Summary: (4.5 stars) GIMME ALL YOUR MTV GREATEST HITS ! (by no means a complete ZZ Top collection, but still an enjoyable one)
Comment: ZZ Top is the eclectic Texas blues/boogie and hard rock band that features the two front men (Billy Gibbons on guitar, Dusty Hill on bass) with trademark dark sunglasses and very long full beards. Drummer Frank Beard has no beard. All three are original members from the band's inception as a cosmic cowboy blues/hard rock trio in 1969. Billy Gibbons is widely respected as one of the best electric blues/rock guitarists in the business.
ZZ Top - Greatest Hits (1992) mostly covers the trio's 1980s techno-boogie working-class chic MTV years, but that doesn't mean that this collection isn't worthy. On the contrary, this is great stuff that any true ZZ Top fan would like. Sure, they use drum machines and electronics on a lot of these songs, but Billy Gibbons' loud and bluesy guitar and humorously sly vocals are still front and center, and everything here is unmistakably ZZ Top.
The collection does briefly touch on the band's early years. La Grange, Tush, Cheap Sunglasses and I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide are all from the band's Tex-Mex blues and boogie years in the seventies, but unfortunately the classic Waiting For The Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago wasn't included, and that is why I docked this collection 1/2 star. That's an unforgivable oversight, but it doesn't steal all the joy from this set. There is still a lot of good ZZ Top music here. Gimme All Your Lovin', Sharp Dressed Man, Legs, My Head's In Mississippi, Rough Boy, Tube Snake Boogie and much more. They even threw in a couple of new songs, Gun Love and their version of Elvis' Viva Las Vegas.
ZZ Top - Greatest Hits includes eighteen songs, and if you're in the mood for hearing ZZ Top music from their highly successful MTV years, this covers the era as well as it really needs to. I'm a fan of the band's early years (Tres Hombres is my favorite ZZ Top album), but I like this era as well. So while I mostly listen to the early stuff, every now and then I'll break out ZZ Top - Greatest Hits and recall all of those cool ZZ Top videos that were on MTV in those days and rock out Tejas style.
