The Texas beard-rockers somehow take MTV by storm

In the slicker-than-slick '80s, a freaky-looking, long-bearded boogie trio out of Houston seemed unlikely to take MTV by storm. But with Eliminator, a reinvented ZZ Top did just that. Updating their classic, good-time Texas boogie with just enough synthesizers to appeal to the New Wave set—and wrapping it in videos full of sexy girls, spinning fur-covered guitars, and magical hot rods—they turned meaty singles like the choogling "Gimme All Your Lovin'" and the wry "Sharp Dressed Man" into genre-exploding classics.