so80s presents… ZTT: track listing

I just purchased my copy of this collection, and I’m quite glad I did!…this is the compilation that ZTT should have put out in the first place, instead of that ridiculous series “The Organization of Pop”…more like disorganization!!!!

The price of this has gone up to £17.99 on amazon which is shocking.

I don’t like Blank & Jones products – they are musical rogues. I advise to find and buy original ZTT compilation called “Zance – A Decade Dance From ZTT” (1994). It includes very sound remixes on Grace Jones, FGTH, Seal,Propaganda, Art Of Noise.

Awesome Tracklist (Frankie-Fan since 1984) and a great Project.

Thanks a lot Blank and Jones :-)

Salvation!
Finally, “Black Night White Light” the best Frankie Non-Single track gets its long avaited remix.

Thank you very much B & J

I eagerly await the new release B & J, the track running times look amazing too. Thanks for explaining the points above Piet re track choices, obviously you were restricted to the tracks you’ve remixed but they are an amazing assortment of tracks nonetheless. A very exciting project for sure. Loved your 80’s styling of Sandra’s release too. Everything you touch turns to gold.

Good work guys- can’t wait to hear black night white light!

Hey, I’ve been on Board since day one, I have about 80% of those remix so80s projecst…so I’m a fan. I support this project and have pre ordered. Looking forward to it greatly. Sonically I hope it kills because I’m gunna play it LOUD and -Proud. I for one hope this is just the beginning for future projects of this nature.
Thanks to Paul.S and BnJ’s.
Cheers!

Great comment Piet.
Glad to know that you used all multitracks you were offered by ZTT for this remix project. So we know that you guys didn’t leave something off. Good decision to leave off the megamix in favour of more remixes.
Hopefully the multitracks of ‘Slave To The Rhythm’ will be found in the vaults one day.
Can’t wait. Can’t wait.

Thank you Piet for taking time to comment, and explain. Really appreciated!

I think the fact that Blank & Jones have been allowed to do this at all is cause for celebration. I’m delighted that ZTT, especially Paul Morley have come on board with the classic design and I’m looking forward to this very much. Will it be getting an Element number as well?

Very excited about this, and really glad that the megamix idea was dropped in favour of more new mixes. Let’s hope that this one is so successful that some of the omissions can be filled in volume 2!

Close to the Edit and/or Beatbox would have been nice, but they have been the subject of to many alternative takes from the vaults that it would be hard to do anything with them that was true to the 80s ZTT style and not already done.

It’s odd that no multitracks for ‘Slave to the rhythm’ could be found, as there were official dance mixes by T-Empo in 1994 that seemed to be made from multitrack masters.

As for Seal… this is so80s not so90s!

Well I’m excited about the album and can’t wait to hear it, as I like all the tracks that are on the album. The one missing track that I was most disappointed about was Close To The Edit though, as I think they could have done something great with that, but now we know why it’s not there. Hopefully it will be a success and they can rummage round the archives and see what else is lurking in there.

I am excited about hearing all of these, but am especially interested in hearing San Jose and Black Night White Light as those are not what’s you’d expect to hear in a remix project. Really an opportunity there to put their stamp on it!

Very much appreciate the replies on this. Given what there was available to work with, and the budgetary constraints, it’s fantastic that we are going to get some less well-trodden tracks to enjoy. I can’t wait to hear what “San Jose” is like.

I can only think of one other similar project, that was “Savarah Remix” by Yukihiro Takahashi back in the mid 1990s. “Savarah” was his first album, pre-YMO, but with Sakamoto co-producing and Hosono playing. It was not Technopop really, more like late 1970s pop with some orchestral and electronic elements. Anyway, Takahashi got one of his trusted studio collaborators Yoshifumi Iio to remix the album as if it was the present day, but only using the original masters. What resulted is absolutely fantastic; alternate versions of all the album tracks, some radically different, some just with a better clarity of sound and highlighting different elements buried in the original lush-sounding mix. Unlike most 1990s remix projects it still sounds good. I hope that will be the case with this ZTT release.

Respect to B&J not only for their efforts but also for their patience with
some non-satisfiable ”fans”.

I applaud B&J for an effort that to my knowledge has yet to be done. They must be admired for their honesty about the behind the scenes information that we don’t always have the privilege of getting. I am sure they would have loved to choose all of the ZTT tracks to work on, but are doing it anyway with what was made available out of a passion for the art. I have done a few re-edits and remixes (very low budget home style) of material from the early 80’s. It is a very time consuming process to reconstruct each measure just to make the source material workable. There are ways to work around this and “fudge” a mix. But B&J are perfectionists to the craft, and give it their all. I say embrace the release and hope it leaves an opportunity for more to come.

Hi

Thank you for commenting on the proces and available multitracks.

In case I didn’t state it clearly enough in my previous post, I am VERY excited by this release. I haven’t been this excited about a new Frankie remix since the original 80s mixes. :-)

I very much hope the project is a huge succes, as I find the idea of hearing different aspects of the original multitracks appealing.

great to see this vivid discussion about the tracklisting…well i will try to explain as much as i can, but most of all i hope that beside the dislikes here above there are some people excited about the tracklisting, but were just too lazy to express it ; )
anyway, as paul was kind enough to mention already: these are all multitracks we recieved from ztt. remember, most of the tracks are 30 years old and not all were so successful that they were treasured as multitracks over the years. some may have fallen apart as well. of course we would have loved to reconstruct more art of noise or propaganda’s p-machinery or even act or andrew poppy and more, but to this date we got the multi tracks for 13 tracks and we reconstructed all of them. of course fgth is a major part of the early ztt history and that’s where we are focussing on. and…i can’t see something wrong about it reworking some of the best 12″ versions ever made like two tribes, relax, rage hard etc…they happen to be from the same artist, so what, they are great songs and we don’t want to miss out on any of these mixes…of course one of every producers biggest dream is to get their hands on grace jones “slave ..” but we were told that there are no multi tracks in excistince from this song for example…also: we were only able to remix ztt owned tracks. seal, grace jones are owned by universal/warner…from 808 state were no parts available…. we know that it is very difficult to meet everyones expectations, but we are very proud to have this opportunity and hope that if this release turns out as a little success it might open doors to the majors and maybe we can even dig deeper in the ztt archives to find anything usable from the art of noise etc….this project is completely self financed and completely at our own risc. we just want to celebrate some the best tracks in pop history with this concept. we hope will enjoy it it….

A lot of Frankie to be sure. I suppose Blank & Jones chose the tracks that exited them the most so I can’t really complain about that.

San Jose and Black Night White Light are perhaps not the obvious choice for a remix album… But who knows. Maybe those tracks will turn out to be the most exiting.

Very much looking forward to WTTP and Dream Within A Dream.

Also I agree it was a good choise to drop the megamix.

There is way too much Frankie on this and they do have a bit of a cheek calling it presents ZTT when it should be presents FGTH and a couple of other tracks. I will still buy it if the price goes down because £15 is taking the piss and it’s really annoying now that Amazon have no competition now where people can get stuff cheaper.

Oh come on! Cheap newsletter tactics ? SDE is extremely informative and plenty of care has been put into everything (thanks to Paul). It’s Blank & Jones that we should all be all howling at!

I too am disappointed, about your cheap newsletter promotion tactics that is.

I also agree about too much Frankie. I didn’t even think about Seal! I’m glad they didn’t go for a megamix disc though. I would also have liked to have seen more Propaganda and Art of Noise.

They should’ve done so80s presents FGTH seperately and done another disc with AoN,Act,Propaganda,Seal,808 State etc.

Saw the track listing . Wasn’t too thrilled. Too much Frankie.

Agreed. Massively disappointed that there wasn’t more AoN and Propaganda. Leaving out “p:Machinery” and “Close (To The Edit)” is darn near unforgivable.

Not that I don’t love Frankie, I do, but the love should have been shared more widely.

Got the newsletter. Disappointed.
ZTT was more than Frankie.

Sure we can all guess the tracklisting within 10% anyway!

I joined the mailing list but didn’t receive the newsletter :-(

I’ll definitely get this! I love the originals and am very curious as to what Blank & Jones have come up with. Bring on the tracklisting (and I hope that will be published complete with running times).

I just realised these are remixes from the multitracks. Interesting!

Very much looking forward to this compilation. Any news on whether a vinyl version will be released?

Noooooo I don’t want to wait!