Is the Little Ol’ Band from Texas angling for a spot on the next do-gooder benefit anthology and positioning itself as a progenitor of “alternative” rock? (Hey, Nirvana is just guitar, bass and drums, too.) RCA might need a marketing ploy this farfetched after cutting the group a deal for a reported $40 million. Since the multiplatinum “Eliminator” (1983), each new ZZ Top album has sold fewer copies; their last, 1990’s stripped-down, hard-kicking “Recycler,” moved a comparatively mere 3.5 million. This may not bode well for the stripped-down, hard-kicking “Antenna,” which debuted on Billboard’s album chart at a respectable 14. But remember, ZZ Top was also deemed a dinosaur before “Eliminator.” Who would’ve thought a major ’70s arena-rock act could take a three-year break and come back more major than ever thanks to danceable drumbeats and videos with souped-up cars and leggy ladies?
In the ’80s, the enigmatic image of Gibbons and Hill with their shades and chestlong beards hooked channel surfers. Were these guys high priests? Bikers? Confederate generals? Falstaffs or Rasputins? Were they kidding or what? Whether the image will play in the ’90s is anybody’s guess. But on “Antenna,” the music still works: bluesbased, hip-shaking rock and roll. Every ZZ Top song is like every other: guitar hook and drumbeat set up a groove, then two fatuous verses (sometimes leavened by coarse double-entendre), a guitar solo, a third fatuous verse, more guitar and out. Boring? Brilliant. It keeps us waiting just long enough to hear Gibbons play guitar and gives us just enough of him. Gibbons, in turn, never plays two notes where one will do; he works with timing, tone and texture and tempers his rawest grinding and shrieking with a woody warmth. Taste and restraint are hardly the qualities that leap to mind when we think of ZZ Top, but they’re ultimately why we keep listening.
