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For those of us of a certain age (mature, experienced and sophisticated, we like to think of it), the record label ZTT will always be associated with a magical time in the mid-80s when a casual interest in the charts was slowly fermenting into something else.
Something more serious, something that pushed the boundaries of pop music without overstepping them but which dared us to cross a line from which we could never return. Something that asked for more than pretty boys in frilly shirts on Top Of The Pops.
Two things answered and fed that need: ZTT records and TV show The Tube. The two will always be linked, in our minds, by Frankie Goes To Hollywood videos, played in full when Radio One said 'no'. Reagan and Gorbachev fighting in foam, Holly Johnson saying rude words we probably didn't even really understand. We loved it so much we even bought the t-shirts. Frankie Says Yes Please.
We knew that this was something different, something better, and that if we embraced it and looked further, it would take us into a lifelong love of pop music that would endure long after we should have been spending our Saturdays in B&Q rather than the Water Rats. ZTT was the kind of label that bred the journalists, DJs and producers of the future, as well as just inspiring bands to pick up their guitars.
For our generation, this four-disc box set of 50 plus tracks and 18 videos, celebrating 25 years of Trevor Horn, Paul Morley and Jill Sinclair's hugely influential ZTT label is more than just a nice treat in time for Christmas. It's a trip down memory lane, filled with nostalgia and memories of first dates, slogan t-shirts and musical exploration at the dawn of MTV.
As it turned out, video didn't kill the radio star, but the two had to get into bed together to ensure mutual survival, and making the fourth disc in the box a DVD rather than a CD is inescapably appropriate to ZTT, more than perhaps to any other label. Theirs were amongst the most visual of records, pop (as) art taken to the limit. The videos are, quite rightly, far too integral to the story to be ignored.
There is far too much here to pick out the 'best'. A 10 minute long, perhaps less familiar version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's seminal Two Tribes. The first ever dance track from Bjork (1991's Ooops, with 808 State). Anton Corbin's first ever video (1984's Dr Mabuse, for Propaganda). Shane MacGowan. Kirsty MacColl. Andrew Poppy. What more do you want?
The music here is hugely eclectic. Electronica, rap, ambient before it even existed, pure pop, classical, art noise. Some are so radio friendly that six of them reached number one, others are hugely challenging in a way that invites you in rather than shuts you out. Most of the acts on ZTT were so clever it hurt.
It's interesting though unsurprising to note how much better the songs have endured than their performers. Few of the artists have lasted the test of time: 808 State and Andrew Poppy released new material this year but they are more or less alone. The music remains, though. It was disposable and instant and yet so much deeper.
ZTT belonged to its time but wrote its own history. The box set even includes an accompanying booklet, written by Paul Morley, which is as much a part of the whole as everything else. The perfect marriage of music, art, journalism, video, production and sound, ZTT was more than a record label, it was an experience. Let the box set take you there.
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