ZZ Top — Legs

JUL 01 1984 · 12:00

ZZ Top — Legs (1984) Director: Tim Newman Era: Early MTV Era (1984) - Peak of the music video as a commercial art form; ZZ Top's Eliminator trilogy redefined narrative-driven rock video storytelling during MTV's third year of operation. A Tier 1 canonical artifact of early MTV culture and one of the most-studied music videos of the 1980s. 'Legs' is essential for any archive documenting the intersection of rock music, television, and gender politics in the Reagan era. Its technical construction — rapid montage, theatrical narrative, iconic recurring props — makes it a primary text for music video formalism studies. The HD remaster version presented here also makes it valuable for archival restoration methodology research. Context: Released in May 1984, 'Legs' arrived during MTV's transformative third year, when the network's heavy rotation could single-handedly lift a single up the charts. ZZ Top — previously perceived by some as an 'old-fogey band' — executed a calculated reinvention with the Eliminator album, blending Texas blues-rock with synthesizers and drum machines into a sound tailor-made for the MTV generation. The 'Legs' video completed a thematic trilogy (alongside 'Gimme All Your Lovin'' and 'Sharp Dressed Man') that codified an instantly recognizable visual language: the red 1933 Ford Eliminator hot rod, three glamorous women as agents of transformation, the band's unmistakable long-bearded visages, and spinning sheepskin guitars. The video's empowerment narrative — a downtrodden female shoe-store clerk remade by the Eliminator Girls — engaged contemporaneous debates about gender representation in rock video, even as feminist critics challenged the video's framing. It remains a cornerstone artifact of early MTV visual culture. Director notes: Directed under Dancing Buffalo Productions for Warner Bros. Records. Shot in February 1984, largely in Valencia, California (now Santa Clarita). Newman conceived the idea of centering the video on a female protagonist, a departure from the two prior Eliminator videos. The video was edited by Sim Sadler and Bob Sarles, both of whom received nominations for Best Editing at the first MTV Video Music Awards, the Billboard Music Video Awards, and the American Music Video Awards. Newman attended the 1984 MTV VMAs and accepted the Best Group Video award on behalf of ZZ Top. For his work on 'Legs', Newman negotiated a royalty-style payment tied to Eliminator's ongoing US sales certifications. The sheepskin-covered Dean Z guitars used in the video were custom-built for the shoot by Dean Guitars; the glue on the sheepskin covering the tuning pegs was still drying when the guitars were couriered to set.