ZZ Top — “Gimme All Your Lovin’“

Entered Top 40: May 7, 1983
3  weeks 
Peaked at: 37

Here, I think, is the first bona fide MTV Hit we’re encountering. Something where the music video achieved an iconic status in its era despite not actually selling that well. Part of this is that “Gimme All Your Lovin’” is part of the Eliminator Trilogy of music videos, along with “Sharp Dressed Man” and Legs.” While ZZ Top was modestly popular before 1983, and a strong touring act, the three videos made them internationally huge. Yet “Gimme All Your Lovin” only got this far, and “Sharp Dressed Man” leveled out at #56. Only “Legs” was as big as they’d seemingly become, creeping into the Top 10 (#8).

ZZ Top had circled around the Bottom Five a couple of times: 1973’s “La Grange” peaked at #41, and “I Thank You” from 1980 hit #34 (their best-performing pre-MTV single was “Tush” from 1975 (#20)). Billy Gibbons had started dabbling with synthesizers on 1981’s El Loco album. On 1983’s Eliminator, he got in deeper, adding drum sequencing and keyboard bass.

Warner Bros. wanted the updated ZZ Top sound on MTV, but the next step was making them hip; Billy Gibbons & Dusty Hill had cultivated their long-ass beards during a hiatus near the end of the ’70s. A couple of prospector-looking guitarists were going to have a hard time fitting in on a network trending younger and prettier. Warners hired Tim Newman, of the film-soundtrack family, to direct “Gimme All Your Lovin’.” Instead of just shooting performance or depicting the band as lead protagonists, Newman had them become mythic “hairy godfathers,” magically appearing to down-on-their-luck schlubs and bestowing the Eliminator car keys (Billy Gibbons’ 1933 Ford coupe); literal keys to coolness. This worked remarkably well — if your band’s gonna look like some Texas wizards, make ’em wizards.

Newman was back to shoot “Sharp Dressed Man,” in which ZZ Top, the car, and the three Eliminatrixes help out a meek auto valet. After a dispute involving product placement, Newman had to be talked into making “Legs.” It ended up being the fourth Eliminator video; in the interim was “TV Dinners,” in which a stop-motion monster is lurking in a microwave meal. “TV Dinners” didn’t get the same MTV attention, and the song didn’t make the Hot 100.

Eliminator’s success and the phenomenon of the videos blurs the three together and it becomes hard to think of them as discrete pieces. “Gimme All Your Lovin’” is probably the worst of the videos; the it was all a dream–or was it? ending is weak, but they were still figuring out the mythos. “Legs’s” twist, in which the Eliminator Babes help a woman out this time, is satisfying enough to make it the best video IMO, the song is my #3 of 3 though (shrug).

MTV held its inaugural Video Music Awards in September 1984, and ZZ Top and Tim Newman won Best Group Video (for “Legs”) and Best Director (“Sharp Dressed Man”). In both cases, a second ZZ Top video was also nominated in the category; this also happened with Best Editing, where “Sharp Dressed Man and “Legs” were among the losers to Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit,” a massive MTV, club, and R&B sensation that peaked at #71 overall.

“Sleeping Bag,” the first single from 1985’s Afterburner, marked the end of the Eliminator car videos, as the vehicle is destroyed (offscreen) and reincarnated as a spaceship. Tim Newman was out as video director by this time. To come back and shoot “Legs,” he had arranged a deal in which he’d get big bonuses based on number of albums sold. This had paid off well enough for the label to not repeat the arrangement. Steve Barron directed instead, best known for “Billie Jean” and “Take On Me.” Barron gives the group some “Take On Me-ish” powers this time. “Sleeping Bag” reached #8, and the Afterburner tour was one of the most successful of 1986. Until Dusty Hill’s death in 2021, ZZ Top had an unchanged lineup for 51 years, which is apparently a record.