ZZ Top announces 50 song career-spanning compilation

Goin’ 50 spans the Texas trio’s entire recording career

ZZ Top are celebrating 50 years of beards, blues, hot cars, and fuzzy guitars this year with a new, Texas-sized compilation that includes the 50 songs that helped transform “that little ol’ band from Texas” into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame standard bearers they have become in the 21st century.

On August 16th, Warner Bros. Records will release Goin’ 50 as both 3 CD and 180-gram 5 LP sets. A single CD version with 18 tracks as well as digital and streaming versions will also be available on June 14th.

ZZ Top will kick off their 50th Anniversary with a trio of “Texas Bash” dates later this month in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, with a full North American tour launching August 16th. Tickets are on sale now.

Packed with enough hits to fill a roadhouse jukebox, Goin’ 50 spans the band’s entire musical career, from its 1969 debut, and its multi-platinum zenith during the Eighties, to its most-recent releases. This new retrospective includes an array from each of the 15 studio albums that guitarist Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard and bassist Dusty Hill have recorded since 1970. Two bonus tracks, “Salt Lick” and “Miller’s Farm” – a single and b-side respectively – were recorded in 1969 by the original incarnation of ZZ Top.

The first disc of Goin’ 50 focuses on the irresistible FM radio hits that hooked the first generation of ZZ Top fans during the Seventies and early-Eighties with songs like “La Grange,” “Tush,” “Cheap Sunglasses,” “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” and “Pearl Necklace.”

The additional disc explores the steady stream of hits the band released between 1983 and 1991 that made them international superstars, including six Top 40 tracks: “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Legs,” “Sleeping Bag,” “Stages,” “Rough Boy,” and “Velcro Fly.”

Goin’ 50 closes with a selection of songs recorded between 1992 and 2016 that find the band returning to its blues roots for fresh inspiration on tracks like “Pincushion,” “What’s Up With That,” “Rhythmeen,” and “I Gotsta Get Paid.” The set’s final two tracks – live versions of “Waitin’ For The Bus” and “Jesus Just Left Chicago” – are taken from the band’s most recent release, Live Greatest Hits from Around the World (2016).

3 CD | CD | 5 LP

CD 1:

1. La Grange (Remastered)
2. Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers (Remastered)
3. Tush (Remastered)
4. Salt Lick (Remastered)
5. Miller’s Farm (Remastered)
6. (Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree [Remastered]
7. Francine (Remastered)
8. Heard It on the X (Remastered)
9. It’s Only Love (Remastered)
10. Arrested for Driving While Blind (Remastered)
11. Enjoy and Get It On (Remastered)
12. I Thank You (Remastered)
13. Cheap Sunglasses (Remastered)
14. I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide (Remastered)
15. Leila (Remastered)
16. Tube Snake Boogie (Remastered)
17. Pearl Necklace (Remastered)

CD 2:

1. Gimme All Your Lovin’ (Remastered)
2. Got Me Under Pressure (Remastered)
3. Sharp Dressed Man (Remastered)
4. TV Dinners (Remastered)
5. Legs (2008 Remastered)
6. Sleeping Bag (Remastered)
7. Can’t Stop Rockin’ (Remastered)
8. Stages (Remastered)
9. Rough Boy (Remastered)
10. Delirious (Remastered)
11. Woke up with Wood (Remastered)
12. Velcro Fly (Remastered)
13. Doubleback (Remastered)
14. Concrete and Steel (Remastered)
15. My Head’s in Mississippi (Remastered)
16. Give It Up (Remastered)
17. Decision or Collision (Remastered)

CD 3:

1. Viva Las Vegas (Remastered)
2. Gun Love (Remastered)
3. Pincushion
4. Breakaway
5. Girl In A T-Shirt
6. Fuzzbox Voodoo
7. She’s Just Killing Me
8. What’s Up With That
9. Bang Bang
10. Rhythmeen
11. Fearless Boogie
12. 36-22-36
13. Piece
14. I Gotsta Get Paid
15. Waitin For The Bus (Live from Nashville)
16. Jesus Just Left Chicago (Live from Nashville)

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn

Buddy Iahn founded The Music Universe when he decided to juxtapose his love of web design and music. As a lifelong drummer, he decided to take a hiatus from playing music to report it. The website began as a fun project in 2013 to one of the top independent news sites. Email: info@themusicuniverse.com