FAINT WAVES

The first entry in a series of posts I’ll do intermittently, but hopefully every single week going forward. This is Song Of The Week, in which I’ll post a song and write a little about it and the artist, maybe talk about the music video if I feel so inclined. I’m just making excuses to write on the site more often I think, either way, you can look forward to more of these.

To start us off is a delightful power ballad, a slow burning synth rocker by ZZ Top: “Rough Boy” from the album ‘Afterburner’. Rough Boy has been on heavy rotation for me in recent history and while I recall hearing it growing up, I’m not sure it ever really struck a chord with me until recently. I’m seeing ZZ Top with Dwight Yoakam in May, so I’ve been reacquainting myself with the band. Naturally, my favorite era of the band is their synth-driven 80’s period. I didn’t think anything of it as a kid, I just liked the songs, but I have an appreciation now for how contrarian and experimental they were being by embracing synthesizers the way they did. Here you had these good ol’ boys from Texas with a sound rooted in Blues and Southern Rock, embracing drum machines, synthesizers, and sequencing technology. Very few in their scene did the same and those that did, well they made some very fucking slick music. That’s exactly the type of music you got from Eliminator and Afterburner (and to a lesser extent, Recycler).

“Rough Boy”, like I said, is a ballad. However, that doesn’t stop it from being one sweet rocker too. With some extremely of-the-era drum machine sounds, breathy synthesizers (possibly a Fairlight CMI or EMU-II), and absolutely smoking guitar work from Billy Gibbons? It’s an album highlight that deserves as much attention, if not more, than “Sleeping Bag” and “Stages” (which I also love). How this tune didn’t land on a million soundtracks is beyond me. It’s a hard song to get sick of, it’s extremely emotive, and it captures the imagination about the titular Rough Boy. As to who the Rough Boy is, he’s not explicitly anyone in ZZ Top, but a fictional character created to channel a ballad through. In a 1985 interview with Spin magazine, Billy Gibbons explained: “He’s this fictitious character who was the only way that ZZ Top was going to get to play another ballad”. However they got there, it worked, because what a tune it turned out to be. It’s the sort of synth-driven rock and roll that made ZZ Top an 80’s staple, the kind of music that earned them diamond and platinum certifications, the stuff that very well makes me a fan.

Thanks for reading.

~ FW.