For we Gen-Xers, it seemed as if ZZ Top didn’t exist until the night they came blazing out of our cable-TV boxes in their ’33 Ford coupe, fully formed in all their outlandishly bearded glory, but of course the “li’l old band from Texas” was an established force in the music industry long before MTV came along. The band got together in 1969 — the year I was born, kids! — and scored their first radio hit with “La Grange,” an infectious ode to their home state’s infamous Chicken Ranch brothel, in 1973. (Incidentally, that link to the Chicken Ranch is perfectly safe to click… it directs you to the site of a writer who has just completed a book on the subject. Lots of interesting history there… ought to be quite a book!)  Even so, there’s little question that the three music videos they made in support of their Eliminator album — “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” and “Legs” — catapulted the band into much wider prominence than they’d previously known, or have managed to retain in the years since. Of course, it helped that those three songs are great songs, but really it was the imagery and, perhaps more importantly, the mythology established in those clips that linger in a generation’s pop-cultural imagination: the desert scenery; the mysterious (and apparently enchanted) hotrod that appears out of thin air and vanishes again when its mission is complete; the hot babes who teach downtrodden young people how to strike back against The Man and, more importantly, how to score. Admittedly ridiculous in the same way that so much of ’80s pop culture was, this was also deeply powerful and memorable stuff that touched on some primal chord — at least in the young men of the day. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the Top would eventually feel compelled to revisit this familiar territory.

Here’s the video for “I Gotsta Get Paid,” the first single from ZZ Top’s latest album, La Futura, which was just released about a month ago:

It’s not quite a return to their classic MTV clips. The band’s sound has become more funky and dirty than it was in the Eliminator era, and interestingly enough, the visuals here reflect that change. Instead of the slick and polished Eliminator car — which mirrored the highly produced music of those days — the cars in this video are the bare-metal, rough-welded “rat rods” that are currently popular in gearhead circles. (My dad loves ’em, for some reason.) Rat rods are literally cobbled together from whatever the builder can find, so they’re very organic and even artistic in appearance, but they’re also raw and primitive-looking… and deliberately so.  The girls in this video also have a different look than the classic ZZ Top babes; their outfits, like the cars and the music, have an improvisational, post-apocalyptic trashiness, whereas the old ZZ babes were more refined… in a sleazy sort of way, of course.

While the specifics may have changed, though, there are hot cars and hot women here, and they, like the sound, are unmistakably ZZ Top. And of course there’s that talismanic keychain, fashioned in the shape of the band’s double-Z logo. In the old videos, it seemed to represent freedom, exploration, and sexual license. (Would anyone be surprised if I reveal now that I’ve used a ZZ Top keychain for my old Galaxie since I was 17 years old?) I’m not sure if it has any such symbolism in “I Gotsta Get Paid.” But it sure made me smile when the girl held it up for the camera at the end. It’s good to see it again…

And on that note, hope everyone has some good plans for the weekend ahead!