ZTT Records

ZTT Records is a British record label launched in 1983 by producer Trevor Horn, businesswoman Jill Sinclair, and NME journalist Paul Morley. Its roster included Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones, the Art of Noise, and Seal. In December 2017, Universal Music Group bought ZTT alongside Stiff Records. Until 2022, the back catalogues of both labels were licensed to BMG Rights Management through Union Square Music; Universal then revived the label.

The name ZTT comes from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s sound poem Zang Tumb Tumb, where “zang tumb tumb” mimics a machine gun. The idea likely came via John McGeoch, who produced Swedish pop-funk band Zzzang Tumb’s 1983 album around the label’s founding. Most of ZTT’s creative team first worked together when Horn produced ABC’s The Lexicon of Love. A forerunner was the short-lived Perfect Recordings, a spin-off from Perfect Songs, Horn and Sinclair’s publishing company; it only released the Buggles’ Adventures in Modern Recording and its singles.

In 1983, Horn, Sinclair, and Morley founded ZTT. Sinclair served as managing director; Morley handled marketing. That year, Sinclair and Horn acquired Basing Street Studios from Island Records in exchange for distributing ZTT. The label’s first signing was Frankie Goes to Hollywood, whose “Relax” and “Two Tribes” became among the decade’s best-selling singles.

“Relax” hit number one in January 1984 and stayed on the UK chart for a year. During the 1980s, Grace Jones and Art of Noise also charted. ZTT shaped UK pop by issuing multiple 12-inch remixes that charted separately, prolonging single life. It also licensed T-shirts with graphic slogans—like “Frankie Say Arm the Unemployed”—that became 1980s icons.

In 1984, the Horn-Sinclair businesses were reorganized as SPZ Group, including Sarm West Studios, Perfect Songs, and ZTT. Most ZTT releases were published by Perfect Songs and recorded at Sarm West. The late 1980s saw a bitter legal battle with Holly Johnson, who fought out of a strict long-term contract; he won outright. Other artists, like Art of Noise and Propaganda, left disenchanted; Propaganda’s case settled out of court.

By the late 1980s, ZTT focused on dance music. Manchester trance group 808 State reached the top 10 with “Pacific State” and three other singles plus an album in the early 1990s. Seal became a major act in the 1990s; the label also scored hits with MC Tunes and Shades of Rhythm. ZTT has produced 45 UK Top 40 hits, 15 of which were Top 10.

In May 2022, UMG released a new album by Propaganda vocalists Claudia Brücken and Susanne Freytag on the reactivated ZTT. Credited to xPropaganda, The Heart Is Strange was recorded with producer Stephen Lipson and received generally positive reviews.

Music videos and cover art

ZTT pioneered music videos and cover art as high art. Morley commissioned videos from then-unknown directors like Anton Corbijn and Zbigniew Rybczyński, who later became acclaimed.

He also commissioned sleeve design from pioneers such as Malcolm Garrett, Corbijn, Mark Farrow, and Jean-Paul Goude. The label’s visual work was profiled by Tony Enoch in Design Week, who described ZTT as part of an era when a record label meant “a happening, a sense of belonging.” In 2008, journalist Ian Peel curated a first exhibition of ZTT sleeve art in London and Tokyo; in 2013, he curated the visual archives of ZTT and Sarm West before the studios were demolished. In 2009, Peel compiled a DVD of the label’s most acclaimed videos, The Television Is Watching You, which received a BBFC 15 certificate.

Action Series

Notable acts included Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the Art of Noise, Propaganda, 808 State, Seal, Grace Jones, MC Tunes, Shades of Rhythm, and xPropaganda. ZTT also acted as a one-time UK distributor for Tommy Boy Records. Internally, the label maintained two series: the Action Series (for most singles and albums, plus a booklet and a concert) and the Incidental Series. The Action Series paused in 1988 and was restarted by label manager Ian Peel in 2012.