This set, with its powerful melodies, brilliant playing (note the superb horns) and all round attitude, is a sparkling reminder of how reggae sounded when it first influenced the world music scene in the Seventies. But it afso bears testimony to the sophisticated consciousness, wisdom and Afrocentric worldview that were the trademarks of the Rasta rebel soul at that time. This music had weight. That 'Roots' and 'Culture' became pilloried cliches at the beginning of the 80s says something about the rot that had set in at the heart of reggae - and just as much about, how times had changed. The idea of Roots - kind of personified by Alex Haley's mid-Seventies book and TV series of the same period - typified the search for an African identity, after centuries of physical and then economic slavery, amongst Jamaican youth.

Trojan Records is a British record label founded in 1968. It specialises in ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub music. The label currently operates under the Sanctuary Records Group. The name Trojan comes from the Croydon-built Trojan truck that was used as Duke Reid's sound system in Jamaica. The truck had "Duke Reid - The Trojan King of Sounds" painted on the sides, and the music played by Reid became known as the Trojan Sound.

Trojan Recordings Presents The Trojan UK Hits Collection album original hits and the original artists genre Reggae.

GRAMMY-award-winning artiste, producer, and songwriter Shaggy’s soca-inspired EP In the Mood is set to be released on May 12. The seven-track project kicks off a new partnership with Shaggy’s label, Ranch Entertainment, and VP Records. For In the Mood, Shaggy drew inspiration from the vibrancy of Caribbean Carnival celebrations and blended the fast-paced exuberance of Trinidad and Tobago’s soca music with modern dancehall and EDM. Led by the revelrous singles “Mood” featuring Trinidadian star Kes and “Don’t Run” with Vincentian singer Skinny Fabulous, the project is set to fuel parties and parades from Port of Spain to Notting Hill.

Inspired by the legacy of Don Drummond, trombonist Samuel Blaser gathered a gang of greats to create the ultimate Jamaican repertoire. ROUTES is the result of their musical camaraderie, anchored in the musical tradition of the island and firmly rooted in jazz.

Now That’s What I Call Music are launching a new generation of Yearbook releases under the ‘Millennium’ banner. The physical offerings are similar to the Yearbooks. The 4CD set is offered in hardcover book deluxe edition and standard card sleeve version, both with 83 tracks.

Cornell Campbell I Man A The Stal-A-Watt collects 32 tracks across two CDs, highlighting the singer’s prominence in the golden era of reggae from the early 70s to early 80s. The title is a boast from the early soundclash era when many of Campbell’s tracks, here produced primarily by Bunny Lee, would play first on King Tubby’s Home Town Hi-Fi in Jamaica. The songs run the range from clash-ready standards like “Mash You Down” and “The Gorgon” to cultural commentaries like “Jah Jah Me Horn Yah” and “Bandulu” to a lover’s masterpiece, “The Investigator,” which leads off the set. Stretching into the early 80s, the collection includes two originals that would spawn countless reinterpretations, “Rope In” and “Boxing Around.”

Uprising would be the final studio album featuring Bob Marley & the Wailers to be released during Marley's lifetime. Prophetically, it also contains some of the band's finest crafted material, as if they were cogent that this would be their final outing. The album's blend of religious and secular themes likewise creates a very powerful and singular quest for spirituality in a material world. Although it is argued that an album's graphic design rarely captures the essence of the work inside, the powerful rebirthing image of a rock solid Marley emerging with his arms raised in triumph could not be a more accurate visual description of the musical jubilation within. Musically, the somewhat staid rhythms often synonymous with reggae have been completely turned around to include slinky and liquid syncopation.

After fronting popular Jamaican vocal trio the Paragons on a succession of best-selling rock steady singles during the late Sixties, John Holt went on to become one of Jamaica’s most popular solo performers, scoring a series of reggae hits for many of the island’s leading record producers. His international breakthrough came in 1974 with the hugely popular ‘1000 Volts of Holt’ album, which fused raw reggae rhythms with sophisticated orchestral arrangements. The highlight of the long-player was a reworking of Kris Kristoffersson’s country hit, ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’, which the following year became a global hit, with the single, peaking at Number 6 in the UK charts. Over the years that followed, Holt remained a giant of the reggae scene with further best sellers and numerous sell-out shows around the world. The very best of his solo work has been brought together on this ‘Essential Artist’ compilation, the latest release in Trojan Records’ newly launched range that showcases the work of Jamaica’s best-loved ‘foundation’ artists. Available as comprehensive 2CD compilation, the collection superbly illustrates the talent that made John Holt one of the reggae music’s most popular and enduring singers.

Class selection of early Ska aces taken from the seminal Kentone Records - a subsidiary of Federal Records
Surveying Jamaican music at the point it transcended Jazz, rock, soul and calypso influences to create the foundations for what would become reggae music. The bookending acoustic pieces by The Sharks and Federal Singers are icing on this big slice of Ginger cake. “Founder of Jamaica’s first recording studio, Ken Khouri produced early ska classics 14 first-rate ska pieces including previously unreleased materials from undoubtedly the industry leading Federal Records that consisted the virtuoso Ernest Ranglin and co.”

Longtime Mad Professor fans only need to take a look at the jaw-droppingly great track list to declare Method to the Madness a major success, one that serves both as an excellent introduction to the man's work and a wonderful roundup of tracks that saves veterans the trouble of carrying a large stack of CDs and CD singles. Sanctuary has been working the Trojan catalog hard with a generally great series of reissues, but the label has outdone itself this time by reaching outside the Trojan catalog for a change and offering the first ambitious Mad Professor compilation to the world. The U.K.-based reggae producer is often characterized as a crazed dubman, but Method to the Madness is also filled with lovers rock that mixes in some new wave attitude, urgent ragga that's synthetic musically but roots lyrically, along with the trippy, free-spirited experimental dub the man is famous for.

The 1970s were a golden age for dub music, with the decade witnessing its humble beginnings through to it becoming a dominant force on the Jamaican music scene. Throughout this fascinating evolution were a handful of pioneering sound engineers who transformed the style from relatively simple experimentations in sound to awe-inspiring reggae masterpieces, with their pioneering work continuing to inspire and influence music makers the world over, up until the present day. Leading this dub revolution were such seminal figures as King Tubby, Errol Brown, Scientist, Prince Jammy and perennial hitmaker, Errol Thompson, whose work with music impresario Joe Gibbs produced some of the biggest hits of the 1970s and beyond. Much of the latter’s dub output from the decade was featured on seven popular long- players that saw issue in Jamaica on Gibbs’s eponymously titled record label between 1974 and 1979, commencing with the experimental, yet hugely influential, ‘Dub Serial’ and ultimately culminating with the suitably titled ‘Majestic Dub’ from five years later.

Another Country is the twenty-ninth studio album by British singer-songwriter Rod Stewart. It was released on 23 October 2015 through Capitol Records. It was produced by Stewart and Kevin Savigar. Stewart released his twenty-eighth studio album, Time, in 2013. The album contained eleven songs written or co-written by Stewart. Commenting on Time, Stewart stated, "I've found that the only way to write songs is to be as personal and honest as possible, And when my last album was so well-received it gave me the confidence to keep on writing, and to examine and write about different things. It also gave me the freedom to experiment with different sounds like reggae, ska and Celtic melodies."

Eddy Grant has often been categorized as a reggae singer, but reggae is only a part of what he's done. In fact, Grant's best known hit, "Electric Avenue," awasn't reggae at all. On this inspired and unpredictable CD, the British singer successfully embraces everything from reggae-pop ("Talk About You," "Welcome To La Tiger") to guitar-powered rock ("Wildcat," "I'm Not Alone Tonight") to country-rock ("Sweet On The Road"). With its haunting acoustic guitar, the title song has a Neil Young-ish appeal. But the album's best song of all is "Gimme Hope Jo'Anna," a indictment of South Africa's cruel apartheid system. Quite enjoyable, Barefoot Soldier was a welcome addition to Grant's catalog.

2012 five CD box set from the British Ska/New Wave band. The Complete Beat contains the band's three studio albums (1980's I Just Can't Stop It, '81's Wha'ppen and Special Beat Service from 1982), each featuring bonus tracks. The set also includes a bonus two CD set made up of a disc of extended remixes plus a disc of Peel and BBC Radio sessions. Contemporaries of the Specials, Bad Manners and Madness, The English Beat (AKA the Beat outside of the U.S.) were part of the Ska revival scene that swept the UK in the late '70s. By the time they released the album Special Beat Service, they had matured into an MTV-ready Pop/New Wave band before splitting shortly thereafter. This box set contains all the hits, every album track, non album a and B-sides, unreleased live performances and much more.