From HoustonPress.com:
Song for song and pound for pound, what is the greatest Texas rock album of all time? Well, grab a Lone Star or three and let's discuss.
Old-timers would no doubt cast their ballot for something like the Thirteenth Floor Elevators' Easter Everywhere, Sir Douglas Quintet's The Sir Douglas Quintet Is Back! or Edgar Winter's Frankenstein. Though they verge on country, Joe Ely's Musta Notta Gotta Lotta and Honky Tonk Masquerade deserve consideration, as do the Fabulous Thunderbirds' first two, Girls Go Wild! and What's the Word? For the handful of people who have actually heard it, the self-titled 1987 LP by True Believers — Alejandro Escovedo and Jon Dee Graham's Televisionesque mid-'80s band — has to rank pretty high.
New wave boosters can rally behind the Judy's Washarama, punks say "Oi!" for the Big Boys' The Skinny Elvis/The Fat Elvis double whopper and headbangers would probably kick your ass for saying anything besides Pantera's Cowboys from Hell. Youngsters might go for the Toadies' Rubberneck or (cringe) Blue October's Foiled, while their more indie-minded brethren could well select Spoon's Girls Can Tell or Okkervil River's Black Sheep Boy. And everyone can agree that not at least nominating ZZ Top's Tres Hombres and Deguello would be outright blasphemy.
Great albums, all of them (well, except Foiled), but Noise respectfully votes none of the above. His choice seldom (if ever) comes up in this conversation, but it's another ZZ Top album — the one that has probably outsold all those others combined. Furthermore, in terms of pop-culture impact upon release, the album trails only Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, U2 and maybe Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys among its contemporaries. It's 1983's Eliminator, 25 years old this year and reissued by Rhino last month in the usual two-disc expanded format with extra tracks and a bonus DVD.
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