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El Loco (1981)

Speed King

Content Creator
Joined
Mar 27, 2018
Messages
2,130
Age
58
Location
Rockford, IL
#1
4.00 star(s) Rating: 4.00/5 1 Vote
Title: El Loco
Artist: ZZ Top
Genre: Rock
Released: 1981

Tracks:
1 - Tube Snake Boogie - 3:05
2 - I Wanna Drive You Home - 4:48
3 - Ten Foot Pole - 4:23
4 - Leila - 3:17
5 - Don't Tease Me - 4:24
6 - It's So Hard - 5:11
7 - Pearl Necklace - 4:07
8 - Groovy Little Hippie Pad - 2:44
9 - Heaven, Hell or Houston - 2:33
10 - Party on the Patio - 2:49

Overview:
El Loco is the seventh studio album by American blues rock band ZZ Top, released in 1981 (see 1981 in music). The title means "The Crazy One" in Spanish. Guitarist/singer Billy Gibbons has stated that the recordings of this album was the first time the three members of the band were isolated from one another in the studio, rather than recording simultaneously in the same room. It also foreshadowed ZZ Top's New Wave direction later in the decade, with early experimentations in synthesizer backing on certain tracks.
El Loco was produced by Bill Ham, and recorded and originally mixed by Terry Manning. David Blayney, in his book "Sharp Dressed Men" explains that Linden Hudson, recording engineer was involved as a pre-producer on this album. Linden did not receive credit for engineering the tracks on "Hippie Pad", which were used on the final album mix. In 1987, most of the band's back catalog received a controversial "digitally enhanced" remix treatment for CD release, however, El Loco did not receive this remix treatment. The original mix of this album has been available on CD since 1987.
 

Lynch

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Joined
Mar 28, 2018
Messages
426
Location
Outland
#3
The first ZZ Top album that grabbed me, way back in my youth. After seeing the ZZ Top thread yesterday, I've been listening to a few of their albums.

Playing El Loco as I write this. Good album. One caveat, the song Leila never fit in with the rest of the album to me. It was almost like a late-80's smooth radio hit for ZZ Top, even though it came out in '81. Good tune, but definitely not part of their normal repertoire by from any album up through the early 80's. I could have seen this one fit in on Recycler or maybe Afterburner.

Still, my favorite track on this album has always been Tube Snake Boogie. Great groove, humorous lyrics.

 
Music information in first post provided by The AudioDB