ZZ Top: La Futura (2012)
Now ten years in the past (where does the time go?) ZZ Top’s fifteenth studio LP, La Futura, was so named (I presume) because it was so darn long in the making (i.e. in the future), this being ‘That Little Ol’ Band from Texas’ long-awaited ‘reclamation’ album produced by geriatric music’s own plastic surgeon: Rick Rubin.
And, though it hardly established a new career benchmark, La Futura was far superior to almost every other pathetic excuse for an album (Afterburner, Antenna, XXX, Mescalero) ZZ Top released since 1983’s bazillion-selling Eliminator (respectable exceptions being 1990’s Recycler and ‘96’s Rhythmeem).
More importantly, if you ask me, this resulting fusion of vintage analog austerity and modern recording techniques didn’t turn into a cynical piece of ‘product’ like Black Sabbath’s soulless partnership with Rubin on the following year’s aptly numbered 13 ... don’t get me started.
Rather, let’s remember that, for the near-decade after 2003’s depressing Mescalero, there’d been no guarantee that these ‘three amigos’ would ever peacefully reconvene in a studio, given the fact that Billy and Dusty barely tolerated each other for decades, and beards long enough to trip on.
But hey, at least ZZ Top looked their age!
So never fear: even a tough customer like me (*) can’t help but celebrate the much improved songcraft (and worship Billy’s unmistakable guitar tone) on stellar boogie rockers like “I Gotsta Get Paid” (shades of “Just Got Paid,” obviously), “I Don't Wanna Lose, Lose, You,” and “Big Shiny Nine.”
La Futura also boasts a classic ZZ Top shuffle called “Chartreuse,” an irresistible strut called “Have a Little Mercy,” a top-notch blues ballad in “Over You,” and a close second in “It's too Easy Mañana,” written by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch, with a few choice words added by Billy.
No, it wasn’t all primo Tex-Mex and BBQ: “Consumption” (the first song accidentally written about the looming music streaming era?) and the harmonica-accented “Heartache in Blue” never really get off the ground, and “Flyin’ High” is a just-plain-wrong, AC/DC impersonation.
But before you suggest this was essentially, ostensibly, virtually a Gibbons solo album, I’ll say “hang on pardner!”: which ZZ Top LP wasn’t?
All in all, IF La Futura proves to be the final studio product released by ZZ Top -- and I honestly hope it will be, given Dusty’s demise in 2021 and longtime manager Bill Ham’s in ‘16 (R.I.P., amigos) -- it’ll be a musical epitaph they can hang their ten-gallon hats and sunglasses on.
In other words: don’t do it gentlemen, or I may just have to go all Roy Kent on you.
* Someone recently called me the Roy Kent of rock criticism -- though of course I took it as a FACKING compliment.
More ZZ Top: ZZ Top’s First Album, Rio Grande Mud, Tres Hombres, Fandango!, Tejas, Degüello, El Loco, Eliminator, Afterburner, Recycler.
