Afterburner (Remastered) ZZ Top

• 1 Sleeping Bag 04:02
• 2 Stages 03:32
• 3 Woke Up With Wood 03:45
• 4 Rough Boy 04:49
• 5 Can't Stop Rockin' 03:01
• 6 Planet of Women 04:02
• 7 I Got the Message 03:28
• 8 Velcro Fly 03:29
• 9 Dipping low [In The Lap of Luxury] 03:11
• 10 Delirious 03:42
• Total Runtime 37:01

Info for Afterburner (Remastered)

Afterburner is the ninth studio album by American blues rock band ZZ Top, released in 1985. Afterburner was a financial success, going several times platinum and launching several hit singles. The most successful single released from this album was 'Sleeping Bag', which peaked at No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks and No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In the UK, it was the band's second album to be certified by the British Phonographic Industry, attaining Gold (100,000 units) in 1985. In 1990, it was certified Platinum (300,000 units), to date their final Platinum certification in the UK.

'Well, if you just had your biggest hit ever, you'd probably try to replicate it, too. And if you were praised for being visionary because you played all your blues grooves to a slightly sequenced beat, you'd probably be tempted to not just continue in that direction, but to tighten the sequencer and graft on synthesizers, since it'll all signal how futuristic you are. [...] Problem is, no matter how much you dress ZZ Top up, they're still ZZ Top. Sometimes they can trick you into thinking they're a little flashier than usual, but they're still a lil' ol' blues band from Texas, kicking out blues-rockers. And blues-rock just doesn't kick when it's synthesized. [...] All this means that Afterburner is merely a product of its time -- the only record ZZ Top could have made at the time, but it hardly exists out of that time.' (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic)

The album peaked at number 4 on the Billboard 200, number 2 on the UK Albums Chart, and number 16 on the Australian albums chart.

Billy Gibbons, guitar and vocals
Dusty Hill, bass and vocals
Frank Beard, drums

Engineered by Bob Ludwig and Joe Hardy
Produced by Bill Ham

ZZ Top
This sturdy American blues-rock trio from Texas consists of Billy Gibbons (guitar), Dusty Hill (bass), and Frank Beard (drums). They were formed in 1970 in and around Houston from rival bands the Moving Sidewalks (Gibbons) and American Blues (Hill and Beard). Their first two albums reflected the strong blues roots and Texas humor of the band. Their third album (Tres Hombres) gained them national attention with the hit "La Grange," a signature riff tune to this day, based on John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen." Their success continued unabated throughout the '70s, culminating with the year-and-a-half-long Worldwide Texas Tour.

Exhausted from the overwhelming workload, they took a three-year break, then switched labels and returned to form with Deguello and El Loco, both harbingers of what was to come. By their next album, Eliminator, and its worldwide smash follow-up, Afterburner, they had successfully harnessed the potential of synthesizers to their patented grungy blues groove, giving their material a more contemporary edge while retaining their patented Texas style. Now sporting long beards, golf hats, and boiler suits, they met the emerging video age head-on, reducing their "message" to simple iconography. Becoming even more popular in the long run, they moved with the times while simultaneously bucking every trend that crossed their path. As genuine roots musicians, they have few peers; Gibbons is one of America's finest blues guitarists working in the arena rock idiom — both influenced by the originators of the form and British blues-rock guitarists like Peter Green — while Hill and Beard provide the ultimate rhythm section support.

The only rock & roll group that's out there with its original members still aboard after three decades (an anniversary celebrated on 1999's XXX), ZZ Top play music that is always instantly recognizable, eminently powerful, profoundly soulful, and 100-percent American in derivation. They have continued to support the blues through various means, perhaps most visibly when they were given a piece of wood from Muddy Waters' shack in Clarksdale, MS. The group members had it made into a guitar, dubbed the "Muddywood," then sent it out on tour to raise money for the Delta Blues Museum. ZZ Top's support and link to the blues remains as rock solid as the music they play. A concert CD and DVD, Live from Texas, recorded in Dallas in 2007 and featuring a still vital band, were both released in 2008. The Rick Rubin and Gibbons-produced La Futura, the band's 15th studio album, and the group's first new studio outing since 2003's Mescalero, appeared in 2012.

This album contains no booklet.