Tejas

ZZ Top | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B000002KJU
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,765 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: ZZ TOP
Title: TEJAS
Street Release Date: 11/04/1987
Domestic
Genre: ROCK/POP

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Rating is for the current remix, not for the music in its original form, August 15, 2006

By 

Farffleblex Plaffington (Parnybarnel, Mississippi) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tejas (Audio CD)

This is not going to be a regular review for me. I finally picked up a bunch of old ZZ Top on CD, and I wanted to join the chorus of moaners about the remixes.

Unlike some, I never hated ZZ Top's style and sound that began with 1981's El Loco. It was an interesting change for the band that helped them sell records and keep their career going in a very different climate for pop music. They still had plenty of good songs in that era.

However, I always much preferred their style and sound from ZZ Top's First Album through Deguello. And Tejas is probably my favorite of the bunch.

I'm a musician, and one of the instruments I play is drums. One thing that I did dislike about the band beginning with El Loco is that in conformity with pop of the time, drummer Frank Beard started simplifying his grooves so that after awhile, it seemed like all he could play any longer was a very basic "four on the floor beat".

One of the reasons I always loved Tejas was for its inspired drumming. Beard, incredible on all of the 70s albums, played some amazing, very subtle, unique, and relatively complex stuff on Tejas, all with a very soulful, kinda-funky-in-a-white-Texan-blues-rock-sort-a-way groove.

Well, the remix basically destroys all of Beard's beautiful work on this album. I know that people have said it was only a matter of effects being added, but I'd swear that some parts have been re-recorded, or at least parts of the drum track were used to trigger modern sounding samples to emphasize a "four on the floor" feel. This was one of my favorite drum records of all time. When I put the disc in the player and heard the opening of "It's Only Love", I quickly stopped it, took the disc out to check it, and figured that the record company must have made a mistake and put the wrong music on the disc. I only realized what happened after I gave it another listen and heard the rest of the band start.

And it's not just the drums. Guitar parts have been changed in various places, too. The original parts and sound of the album are fairly well burned into my brain--in the 1970s, this was one of the records I most frequently practiced drums with.

And it's not just this album. All of the 70s albums have been tampered with in this way.

ZZ Top, please restore this album, and your other 1970s albums, to their original recordings and mixes. Thousands of fans who have stuck with you for over 35 years now are eagerly waiting to buy the music they love and remember.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars After 10 Years of this Garbage, its TIME to do this CD right, January 30, 2001

By 

Andy Harman (West Chester, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tejas (Audio CD)

Tejas, released originally on vinyl in 1976 or 77 is ZZTop's best album. It is the one that established them as musicians and not just three guys trying to blow up amps... although their simultaneous detonation of "Backdoor Love Affair" on the live size of Fandango is among my top 2 or 3 openings in all of rock and roll. Tejas was a brilliant, dry, gritty album with some great hits - "It's Only Love" (does anyone besides me get flashbacks to "Brown Sugar" listening to this?), "Driving While Blind"... one of the best singalongs ever "She's a Heartbreaker", and the tight chording on "Pan Am Highway Blues". Unfortunately, Bill Ham remixed the first six ZZ Top albums for CD before anyone caught on that great things don't need to be re-invented. The CD version of Tejas is the worst CD re-mix ever, out of over 600 in my collection. It basically sounds as if the whole album has been recut with a drum machine (a bad one too) and fed through an echo box. It's nothing but an insult. At the time, one of the audio magazines reviewed it (after I already bought it) and declared it the worst CD remix of the year. Nice to see no one was listening. I suppose the other ZZTop six-pack remixes are just as bad, but Tejas was my favorite album so it stands out. I bought the sixpack 10 years ago, and from reading the other reviews, Tejas still hasn't been fixed. I should mention that the LIVE half of Fandango has not received the drum machine treatment, making 1/12 of the sixpack the saving grace. It has been 10 years, please you guys, re-mix this album like the original, so I can use this one for target practice.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars 5 STARS REDUCED TO 1 FOR AN AWFUL REMIX, August 27, 2004

By 

James D. Jones (DeFuniak Springs, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tejas (Audio CD)

This is ZZ Tops best album.I loved this on vinyl for over 20 years.When I finally got rid of my record collection I bought this on CD and the remix,particularly the drum parts make me ill.Another problem on my copy which I haven't heard anyone else mention is that the first two words of"arrested for driving while blind"are missing as if they were omitted.It has been so unpleasant not being able to listen to one of my all time favorite albums as much as I would like.