ZZ Top’s Biggest Hits on the Hot 100 & Billboard 200
“ ZZ Top really went into mid-’80s commercial overdrive, thanks largely to the advent of MTV — a format not often charitable to the AOR rockers of yesteryear, but one that ZZ Top embraced with particular élan, becoming music video icons as the mystical hairy dudes with the fuzzy guitars, the cool car and the hot chicks,” wrote Billboard ’s Andrew Unterberger in tribute to the band’s drummer of 56 years, Frank Beard, who died Aug.
17.
Beard’s death follows that of the band’s bassist Dusty Hill in July 2021.
For more than a half-century, Hill, Beard and lead vocalist Billy Gibbons, 76, powered ZZ Top to elite prominence and chart achievements on the Billboard Hot 100 , the Billboard 200 and rock rankings. (“Ironically, Beard was the one member of the group to go clean-shaven, Unterberger noted, citing a Gibbons quote: “‘Frank’s beard is on his driver’s license.’”) The group notched 17 Hot 100 hits between 1972 and 1991, including eight top 40 entries.
Two rose to the top 10, both to No.
8, and both powered by memorably raucous videos: “Legs,” in 1984, and “Sleeping Bag,” in 1985.
ZZ Top, which was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, also boasts 22 titles on the Billboard 200.
The band’s seven top 10 placements span 38 years, from Tres Hombres (No.
8, 1974) through La Futura (No.
6, 2012).
With ZZ Top’s radio home at rock, the group also landed 16 top 10s on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, highlighted by six No.
1s in 1985-94: “Sleeping Bag,” “Stages,” “Doubleback,” “Concrete and Steel,” My Head’s in Mississippi” and “Pincushion.” Below, Billboard ranks ZZ Top’s five biggest hit songs and albums on the Hot 100 and Billboard 200, respectively.
Meanwhile, per Gibbons, he and bassist Elwood Francis will continue ZZ Top’s legacy: “The band is going to keep on keeping on.” ZZ Top’s biggest Hot 100 and Billboard 200 hits charts are based on performance on the weekly Hot 100 and Billboard 200, respectively, through the Aug.
22, 2026, rankings.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on www.billboard.com — the content belongs to Billboard.
