ZYX Music

ZYX have a great metal label called Golden Core! They release quality heavy metal in the last few years.

All that's left of ZYX is horribly cheap and disrespectful reissues of their back catalogue, random trance stuff and the occasional 50s compilation.

Dear ZYX, you have bought a golden catalogue, why not respect it?

Zyx had two era's the first one by offering great 12" and CD's as many of their compilations offered full lenght tracks something that other ones like Serious Beats, Arcade, etc.. never or rarely did .

The second era from Zyx mostly their shame feels like they changed of boss or gave their whole catalogue to another person/group as their quality dropped drastically by the late 90's to today . Alot of their compilations are Best of's from hardcore, jazz, blues, heavy metal, goa, etc.... alot of them suddenly became cheap something that wasn't the case with Zyx surely for "Techno Traxx" to be very expensive in the late 80's and early 90's around 25€ whereas those from the late 90's to later on were mostly less than 10€ .

I have also a semi-feel from that label the one that has offered a great time with found music on records and cd's then it gave me the bitter taste as the one behind the label only care for the money and be greedy without offering real quality . That is why alot labels are failing and others that has ruined many music styles because of their greed and nonsense over the top marketing to be sick on ( 5th Gear, Mecado, Arcade, Emi music, Sony Music, etc... )

I noticed strange thing with many ZYX mid 90s releases. Even though they are marked as released in , they rarely appearing on sale from , but many is located in America. The US market is big, yes, but the releases I am talking about are from Euro / Italodance style. Such styles were never popular in the USA. Strange.

This German label started its life in the 80s with the distribution of Italo dance. Later on, they switched to dance music in general. For me, ZYX was one of my favourite labels, because I was mixing CDs in the early-mid nineties.

1. When ZYX released a title on 12 inch, there was also a CD version of it, containing all the tracks the 12 inch had, plus radio versions. Other labels tended to replace one of the tracks of the 12 inch by a radio version, or drastically reduced the number of tracks to keep the total time under a certain limit. Or they simply only released the title on vinyl, not on CD. X Press 2 "London Express" (1993) was only available on CD maxi... in , on ZYX! Not even Junior Boy's Own was eager to release a CD of it, even though the track was a bigger club hit in the UK than it was in .

2. ZYX also released excellent compilations featuring two discs full of DJ friendly, unmixed, full length 12 inch versions. This ranged from commercial Super Dance compilations to the twenty volumes of "Techno Trax", 's harder-edged answer to Arcade's "Turn Up The Bass". Sure, there were some filler tracks on them but buying these comps was more cost-effective than just the CD maxi singles of the songs you liked. I also got in touch with tracks I would never have discovered otherwise.

3. ZYX licensed a lot of interesting tracks from non-German labels, most notably New York's Strictly Rhythm and the Italian U.M.M. Some of the German SR releases contain bonus mixes for the German market, not to be found on the original American SR vinyls. As I was following SR those days, this was a dream come true for me.

Sadly enough, it all had to end...:(
During the late nineties, the label started to lose focus and the quality of their compilations got worse and worse... although their current Italo Disco Collection series is a sign of hope...

When it comes to electronic dance music. Few labels if not, none can be compared to the Behemoth ZYX Music is. There is a LOT of releases to be explored, even more when you factor in the fact that there are still ZYX releases that haven't been submitted on discogs yet. Quite a number of hidden gems in this label. There are also some labels were their releases were distributed by ZYX. (BOY Records, Planet Love, Techno Drome International to name a few.) Also, if it wasn't for ZYX, many of their issued CD releases licensed from a foreign label would never be released on CD. I depend on them in getting some really obscure tunes on CD from a small label that released all their catalogue in 12" only. It is also a godsend for people that collect styles like Disco and Eurodance. I'll always have a spot for ZYX in my musical heart...