ZZ Top - Fandango!
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Free Music Notes for Fandango!
Free Music Review: bad hard rock
Hit: 2 Stars
This is a review for the vinyl version of Fandango.
ZZ Top's Fandango album is pretty bad and not worth owning at all, in my opinion. Read on to find out why:
First of all, the first side is probably the most *boring* side to a hard rock record from the 70's I've ever heard. Normally a band comes out strong with worthwhile material to kick things off, but apparently ZZ Top wanted to be different. The "half live"/"half studio" idea didn't work.
Their cover of "Jailhouse Rock" is not only inferior to the original, but inferior to every version of the song I know. It's WAY too short, and not interesting. From there, a 9-minute jam is up next. It starts off like it's going to be a pretty rockin' tune, but then it begins annoying me when it eventually turns into a giant rambling mess. It seriously sounds to me like the final 6 minutes of the jam consists of just one single drum beat pounding over and over, with the singer going back and forth between whispering and screaming. It's really boring. It's SUCH a carelessly created jam. Probably some of the worst live music I've ever had the displeasure of hearing.
Things pick up a bit for the second side (the studio portion of the album). "Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings" has a nice funky beat, which was ZZ Top's trademark back in the day. The guitar solo fails, and the vocals go by harmlessly, but with hardly *any* excitement whatsoever. Actually that's a huge problem I have with early ZZ Top- their music is loud, certainly rocks and they are all competent musicians, but many of their vocal melodies consist of singing along to an upbeat funky rocker, with really no creativity involved to make the vocals stand out.
"Blue Jean Blues" is easily the best song on the entire album. It's a slow, bluesy number with pretty good guitar playing. Really the band is just copying what Led Zeppelin and countless other rock bands did better, but for what it is, it's acceptable. "Balinese" unfortunately is NOT acceptable. It sounds like a really bad attempt for a commercial hit. It's probably not, but nothing can save it from being horrible.
"Mexican Blackbird" is only worthwhile for the neat southern accent from the lead singer. That alone makes the song stand out, but it can't escape the reality of being just an above-average rocker. "Heard It On the X" is perhaps the best song on Fandango. It rocks convincingly, not carelessly like the rest of the album. "Tush" finishes off the album. Everybody knows it. It's pretty good, but overplayed thanks to classic rock radio. That hurts it only slightly.
Overall, ZZ Top had some good songs, but the majority of their career was spent on creating and releasing one spotty album after another. The thing that bothers me is how most of their songs have guitar solos, and not a single one of them is interesting almost 100% of the time.
Luckily Fandango is barely 30 minutes long, but I should have watched Jeopardy instead.
Free Music Review: Garbage Remix With 80's Gimmickry
Hit: 1 Stars
As part of an attempt to capitalize on the success of their Eliminator sound, ZZ Top decided to go back into the studio and remix and also re-record parts of their first 6 albums thinking it would make them more money and entice fans of their newer sound to go back and buy their earlier records. Well guess what, in the process their older fans who were used to the original versions on the old cassettes and albums were shocked when they listened to any of these first generation CD releases. They heard bogus reverbed drums, and entire sections of both music and vocals re-recorded. Talk about tarnishing the legacy of a great band's output. Well someone finally wised up and now at least Tres Hombres and Fandango are now available in original mix, remastered form. So stay away from this trash and wait for the entire back catalog to be released in it's original mix, remastered form on CD.Free Music Review: I'm Just Looking for some Top!!!
Hit: 4 Stars
ZZ Top's Fandango is good I must say the studio cuts, the second section,are good "Tush" "Balinese" are great ZZ Top songs and in the first section, which is live, "Thunderbird" is a great blues start and there "Jailhouse Rock" is great a little slow but great all the same. Along with Tres Hombres this is a must buy for listening to the ZZ Top of the 1970's before the 80's and MTV changed them. Free Music Review: Good CD, but extending the live part long overdue.
Hit: 4 Stars
To me, this would've been a great EP of studio cuts and a great live album. The reason why they didn't make a full-length studio album out of this (even though all the songs are some of their best to date) was that it came out a little too close to "Tres Hombres" which had been the one that people started noticing them for and were still riding high on in '75.
What can you say about songs like "Tush", "Blue Jean Blues"? or "Heard it on the X"? "Mexican Blackbird" and "Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings"? Some of their best songs on one album...
Here's my complaint about it. The entire CD is a little over 30 minutes. The studio side is about 17 minutes, and the live cuts are about 15 minutes total. Which means that they could have easily added 40 more minutes of live cuts that weren't included originally due to the time constraints of the day. Considering that this is the only live recording in their discography, it would be great for them to extend this one in particular.
Free Music Review: FANDANGO!!
Hit: 5 Stars
Awesome album. A must have for any ZZ Top fan, or any fan of good music for that matter.