ZZ Top-Afterburner (1985)

 

Artist: Z Z Top

Title: Afterburner

Label: Warner Bros.

Format: LP

Cat #: 9 25342-1E

Year of Release: 1985

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1985

Listed Condition: VG+/VG

Sell Date: 2/8/21

Sell Price: $4.99

Discogs Last Sold: 1/14/21 $7.87 VG+/VG+

Low: $3.00

Median: $7.91

High:  $15.79 NM/VG+

Current low price:  $2.00 P/G, $3.95 VG/VG

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 88

Have/Want: 7417/297

Where Sold:  Minneapolis, MN

Time it took to sell: 6 years

Where and When Bought: Worcester MA used within month of release, That's Entertainment $3.99

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade:  C-

Sad To See It Go:  No

I hated this record when it came out.  

Figures this would be the tour I got to see them on, but I did think the show was excellent.  I was so happy to find this in the used bin within a couple weeks of release, clearly by someone who bought it that was disgusted as I was.  An "everybody sucked in the 80's productions" opens where the worst track on Eliminator (duh, "Legs") left off, "Sleeping Bag."

Time has tempered my hatred of this album.  I still think it's their worst to this point, but after seeing their documentary from a couple years back, I was open to giving Afterburner another shot for the first time since the mid-80's.  My father recommended the documentary to me earlier this year, having only been vaguely familiar with the band.  He was excited at the range and span of their career.  Just because it was personally reviled, it must be noted this record that sold 5 million copies from 1985 to 1999.  Since then it hasn't hit 6 as far as the RIAA is concerned.  Records like this drove me to the underground where loud, distorted guitars, not bleeps, blurps and rhythm machines  reigned supreme.

For such a hated record I was surprised at how many songs I knew.  Of course, "Woke Up With The Wood" can't be denied.  "Rough Boy" I despised, and it still makes my skin crawl, although I have to admit there is more guitar in it than I remembered. "Can't Stop Rockin'" and "Velcro Fly" were also inescapable in the mid-80's, and those cuts I don't mind hearing.   I didn't feel like I forgot a lost gem as the other songs played throughout the album.

I remember going straight to the record store when I heard "Gimmie All Your Lovin'" on the radio in 1983.  I had a childhood friend that had El Loco and I had Tres Hombres and The Best of Z Z Top sometime between.  The first Top I heard was Degüello, which I pronounced Dee-jello for many childhood years, including taking it out of the library,  until I heard a DJ play "Cheap Sunglasses" and pronounce it correctly sometime before taking a Spanish class in junior high school.  I remember Kasey Kasem having their version of Sam & Dave's  "I Thank You" in the lower regions of the chart and telling a story of the bands long haitus.   As with most 70's kids under ten, these covers weren't revealed until teenage record buying years.   I got most of the Top catalog used sometime before Afterburner came out.

I saw Top about a decade ago at the Beacon, and it wasn't much different than the arena spectacle I saw in Worcester in 1986.  I even got to see The Moving Sidewalks first show in 44 years in 2013 at BB Kings in NYC, which was more my speed taste-wise.

Still, it is sometimes desirable to wake up with the wood every now and again.

It's a product of being alive, after all.