“Legs” won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video, and “Sharp Dressed Man” won a Best Direction VMA. This crossover was largely thanks to high-rotation MTV airplay of those tracks’ cheeky, colorful Tim Newman-directed videos, which starred some of the channel’s earliest and most iconic video vixens. 1983’s Eliminator album, which incorporated synthesizers and was reportedly influenced by Depeche Mode, spawned three massive pop singles (“Gimme All Your Lovin',” “Legs,” and “Sharp Dressed Man”), sold more than 10 million copies, and spent a whopping 183 weeks on the Billboard album chart. ZZ Top were first known as a more traditional, heavy Texas blues/boogie band with classic rock radio hits like “La Grange,” “Tush,” and “Cheap Sunglasses,” but they enjoyed their most commercially successful period in the 1980s as unlikely MTV superstars - with Gibbons and Hill’s signature long beards, ever-present sunglasses, and furry guitars as ubiquitous on the new channel as Duran Duran’s pastel suits, Madonna’s peek-a-boo bra, and Boy George’s braids. In 2004, ZZ Top entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards delivering the ceremony’s induction speech. This classic lineup remained in place for the next half-century and went on to release 15 studio albums and sell 50 million albums worldwide. Hill, Gibbons, and Beard joined forces in a new incarnation of ZZ Top (which had recently released their first single with a different lineup featuring bassist/organist Lanier Greig and drummer Dan Mitchel) and released their full-length debut in 1971 they quickly became known for their sexual-innuendo-laden humor and blistering live shows driven by the signature “barrelhouse” sound of rhythm section Hill and Beard.
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