If your ZZ Top vinyl collection has seen better days, there’s some good news. UCR has a chance for you to make an upgrade with some choice slabs of wax.
Rhino’s High Fidelity series rolls onward with a new ZZ Top box set, From the Top: 1979-1990. Limited to 3,000 copies, it features five albums, from 1979’s Deguello all of the way through 1990’s Recycler, packaged up in a faux leather slipcase. Lacquers for each record were cut from the original stereo master tapes by Kevin Gray and pressed to 180-gram vinyl.
Ultimate Classic Rock Nights has your shot to win a copy of this primo set. While you’ll have to supply your own Texas BBQ, the soundtrack is taken care of courtesy of the unmistakable sound put to tape by Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard. Hit after hit received wall to wall airplay on radio and MTV at the time. Revisiting the albums as a whole, it’s clear that they’d found a certain special juju in this particular era.
Detailed liner notes by James Austin feature recollections on each album by Gibbons, helping to further flesh out the story of how ZZ Top approached the music they were making then. And at times, you get a view into the inner workings of what makes the Texas legends tick. What is it about those sunglasses that they wear, anyway?
The guitarist and vocalist was happy to offer at least a hint as he discussed “Cheap Sunglasses” and how they fit into the world of the band. “ZZ Top might be said to exist as a band of lowbrow hellions, having popularized stylized fashion during their naive immunity of exactly that way back around ’79 or ’80,” he told Austin in an interview about Deguello. “When it comes to sunglasses, they’re part of the essentials. Sunglasses after dark speak mucho of nonconformity, setting one apart from a mostly distracted crowd. And cheap sunglasses seem to forever exist as always accessible.”
READ MORE: Top 10 ZZ Top Songs
For your chance to win ZZ Top’s From the Top: 1979-1990 simply enter your name, email and phone number into the entry form at the top of this page. You will be added to UCR’s daily newsletter mailing list. The contest ends Sept. 8, 2025 at 11:59pm EST.
Ranking Every ZZ Top Album
From the first album to ‘La Futura,’ we check out the Little ‘ol Band From Texas’ studio records.
Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
