This Day in Music History (10/28): ZZ Top/Afterburner

Afterburner is the 9th studio album by the American rock band ZZ Top, released on this day in 1985. The album was a financial success, going several times platinum and reaching #4 on the Billboard albums chart. It launched several hit singles, the most successful of which was "Sleeping Bag" which peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Three other songs also charted: "Rough Boy" (#22), "Velcro Fly" (#35), and my personal fave "Stages" (#21). The song "Can't Stop Rockin'" was used in the 1993 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (there were three of them?!?). One track was an element in Stephen King's The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands; Eddie keeps hearing drums playing in the distance and thinks it sounds like, then later realizes it is, the drum track for "Velcro Fly".

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