ZZ Top / La Futura
Artist ZZ Top
Album Title: La Futura
Album Cover:
Primary Genre Rock: Classic Rock
Format CD
Released 09/11/2012
Label American Recordings
Catalog No B0017380-02
Bar Code No 6 02537 14113 5
Packaging Cardboard Sleeve
Tracks
1. I Gotsta Get Paid (4:03)
2. Chartreuse (2:57)
3. Consumption (3:49)
4. Over You (4:30)
5. Heartache In Blue (4:09)
6. I Don't Wanna Lose, Lose, You (4:22)
7. Flyin' High (4:18)
8. It's Too Easy Mañana (4:48)
9. Big Shiny Nine (3:11)
10. Have A Little Mercy (3:19)
Date Acquired 11/13/2012
Personal Rating
Acquired from Electric Fetus - Minneapolis
Purchase Price 12.99

Web Links

All Music Guide Entry:
Discogs Entry:

Notes

Compressed all to hell. Sadness.


Comes in a wallet-fold cardboard case.

Recorded at Foam Box Recordings, Houston, TX
Additional Recording at Shangri La Studios, Malibu, Calif
A&R for American Recordings: Dino Paredes
Car Photo Pedro Chapouris - SoCal Speed Shop.

ZZ Top Extends "Thanks" To Our Friends:

Rick Rubin & Dino Parades at American Recordings; our attorneys, Mr. Peter Laird, Ed Kelman; our advisors, Art Seltzer & Brad Whatlay; Carl Stubner, Blain Clausen & evoryone at Sanctuary Artist Management: Rob Light, Mario Tirado & Jenna Adier and everyone at CAA; Bob Merita, Denjse Le Moix, Boyd "El Chingadero de Mystertoso" Elder, chief engineer Joe Hardy, G.L. "G-Mane" Moon, Elvin Stoneman, Pablo Gamboa, Tim Lamb, Owayne Taylor, Kristina Stamm, Elwood Francis, Ken Gordon, Nico Beard. Joseph Kaiser, Nathan Alves. Salty Waters, Jake Mann, Jarvis Wells, George Keim, Jeff Archibeque, Jason Childs, John Varvatos, Josh Huffman, Rudy Rodriguez, James Harman, and Manuel Grayson the Broncbuster.

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foobar2000 1.2.9 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2014-01-02 02:41:58
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzed: ZZ Top / La Futura
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DR         Peak         RMS     Duration Track
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR4        0.00 dB    -5.13 dB      4:03 01/10-I Gotsta Get Paid
DR3        0.00 dB    -3.67 dB      2:57 02/10-Chartreuse
DR3        0.00 dB    -4.18 dB      3:49 03/10-Consumption
DR3        0.00 dB    -4.66 dB      4:30 04/10-Over You
DR3        0.00 dB    -4.16 dB      4:09 05/10-Heartache in Blue
DR4        0.00 dB    -4.77 dB      4:22 06/10-I Don't Wanna Lose, Lose, You
DR5        0.00 dB    -6.38 dB      4:18 07/10-Flyin' High
DR4        0.00 dB    -5.28 dB      4:48 08/10-It's Too Easy Mañana
DR4        0.00 dB    -5.14 dB      3:11 09/10-Big Shiny Nine
DR4        0.00 dB    -5.29 dB      3:19 10/10-Have a Little Mercy
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Number of tracks: 10
Official DR value: DR4
Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 1029 kbps
Codec: FLAC
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reviews
All Music Guide Review:

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
ZZ Top have long been a prime candidate for a Rick Rubin-led comeback, having long ago settled into an insular digital rut that paid back increasingly small dividends. La Futura is that long-awaited ZZ Top record, their first full-length in nearly a decade (the last was 2003's Mescalero) and, more remarkably, their first-ever album to bear a production credit by somebody who is neither Billy Gibbons nor longtime manager Bill Ham, who left the organization in 2006. Gibbons sits at the mixing board with Rubin and together they revive the Top's dirty '70s boogie, never quite forgetting the coolly propulsive stylized rock of Eliminator. Certainly, La Futura is the best album from ZZ Top since that '80s landmark but it flips Eliminator on its head, using synthesized elements as accents, not as a skeleton. Rubin returns real drums to ZZ Top but doesn't entirely strip away drum machines, giving La Futura just enough of a futuristic shimmer to live up to its name, just enough of the present to make it feel of the moment. And there's no mistaking that this lil' ol' band from Texas is indeed old -- and its age is part of the pleasure of La Futura. ZZ Top have the weathered interplay of vets who've been doing this for almost their entire lives and Billy Gibbons' gravelly growl has now withered into a gnarly, strangled croak, almost primal in its ugliness. Far from hiding his ragged singing, Gibbons and Rubin have it battle the thick blasts of fuzz guitars throughout the whole of the album, noise that even splatters the slow 12-bar form of "Heartache in Blue." It's a thick, tactile sound that's invigorating -- the smack of Frank Beard's snare is infectious -- and that alone would make La Futura a success, but what makes it a triumph is the coolly efficient songwriting. ZZ Top cleverly reference past glories without succumbing to recycling: "I Gotsta Get Paid" could have wallowed in the Rio Grande Mud, "Chartreuse" boogies as relentlessly as "Tush," "Have a Little Mercy" winks at "Waitin' for the Bus," and they revive the arena rock of the '80s with "Flyin' High." What makes these songs really cook is how ZZ Top are celebrating everything that they've taken for granted for decades -- they're embracing the sleazy boogie, the dirty jokes, the locomotive riffs, the saturated blues, the persistent lecherous leer, and by doing so they finally sound like themselves again.
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