Customer Reviews

Trojan Dub Box Set 1 (Spec)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Long before reggae music or Bob Marley became household words among music lovers in the United States, Duke Reid's Trojan Records had been tremendously successful in marketing reggae music in the UK. Duke Reid began in Jamaica as a master blaster who traveled the island with his massive sound system, which he dubbed the "Trojan" after the brand name of the semi-truck he used to haul the system around in. Eventually Reid ended up in the production and entrepanuerial end of reggae music as well. He began recording promising rock steady and ska artists in Jamaica and marketing the music in the UK on his newly found Trojan label in the mid 1960s. He also bought the UK licensing rights to many early Jamaican reggae hits and sold them on the Trojan label in the UK. As a result, the Trojan back catalog of music may be the most extensive and best preserved archive of early reggae music anywhere. Trojan music did for reggae in the UK, what Chess records did for the blues in the USA, that is, each label successfully marketed a specialty music and developed a large crossover audience.

We are all lucky that Trojan records nearly 40 years after it's founding is remastering and repackaging a great deal of it's massive vault of master tapes and packing the songs in chronological 3 cd box sets. Every conceivable sub-genre is available on the 70 or so releases by Trojan, including ska, intrumental reggae, dub, nyabingi, rock steady, Brit hits, lover's rock, down tempo....you name it. The amazing part is the retail price for each three cd box is about the same price as a single CD. I've already bought about 10 of the Trojan boxes and be cautioned, many of the releases are limited edition, so this is a rare opportunity for collectors and newbies alike to browse through the nearly 5000 tracks released in the 70 Trojan boxes, and pick and choose by genre the music they like. It's enough to make hardcore reggae fans shout, "Irie" and say goodbye to a lot of hard earned money, but the music is priceless.

This 3 cd set of Dub music is the best seller of all the Trojan boxes on Amazon. It features dub style remixes of many of the early studio efforts of two great reggae studio bands, the turbo charged riddims of Sly and Robbie and the bubbling and pulsating riddims of the Roots Radics. It's no coincidence that the Radics and Sly and Robbie were both early back-up bands for lover's rock icon Gregory Isaacs, who's music is also prominently featured on this dub collection. The other featured dub remix masters are King Tubby and Scientists along with early rock steady and ska versions by the Aggrovators, the Upsetters and the Observers. The reason why the "Dub Box Set 1" is the best seller is probably the large number of Gregory Isaac tunes. I'd advise the serious collector to browse the tunes on each of the Trojan Box sets, all of which are five star selection in my book, but many others have a greater variety and more obscure cuts than these remixes of mostly Sly and Robbie and the Radics. It's not a bad thing, however because Sly and Robbie's Band and the Radics have long been the Twin Towers of reggae studio bands.

When you're compilation is 50 songs deep, you really can't go wrong. When the compilation is dub music, you're in for some VERY good times ahead indeed.

This box set is just about all the dub the average reggae person would want, plenty of hard-to-find stuff for the true dub head, and contains just enough great stuff per disc to ensnare the person new to instrumental and re-mixed reggae. There's some classics on here you can't get anywhere else anymore, and the quality of the tracks compared to the number of them is actually pretty breathtaking. A little bit of just about everybody in the realm to get you going, or to pad out your existing collection of dub.

Okay set, but just adds up to about 2 full CD's of music, so unless you get a great price it is not a 'super-value'. There is a booklet with a very general essay on dub music, but otherwise there is a serious lack of info on the cuts. Sound quality is just okay -- you can do WAY better for a dub collection if you look elsewhere. Incidentally, many of these tracks were used by Bill Laswell for his Dub Massive Trojan re-mix sets.

This was my second adventure with dub, my first official comp was Sly and Robbie in dub 1978-1985, and this was the collection that now 6 years later, I can say in its entirety, its one of the best classic dub collections out there. From my stoned perspective, every single track, just cleansed my brain....granted not a single song in this collection had Augustus Pablo, (Second Dub Box Set has him)but lots of Tubby, Scientist, & King Jammy, so I cant complain!!!! So If you have just got into reggae, and want to dive deeper...START HERE!!! Then If you like what u hear, move on and prepare to dive into the world of Dub...cause once you get hooked, it becomes addictive, and u want to try and own as much dub as possible!!!! Highly Recommended!!!!

If you like Dub and want to have uninterrupted hours of the best of classic Jamaican Dub music playing in the background then this Box is for you. A great collection featuring the best representation of the style. Volume 2 is just as good.

Volume 1 of Trojan's dub sets does not disapoint. One reviewer said that these tracks were nothing special; I disagree. While the sound quality is a little old school, I haven't found one track that I don't like. I've listened to all 3 cd's numerous times, and I still enjoy hearing all of the fine dub melodies. For around 15 bucks, you really cannot beat this deal.

I have been a ska fan for quite some time now and decided to explore reggae. This is my first reggae cd and I am very impresssed. This collection doesn't let up, every song is just awesome to chill out to. I would say this set is an excellent introduction to Dub reggae and I can't wait to pick up another Trojan Box set.

This is a wonderful compilation indeed, with lots of first-rate dub; it's a good, solid collection, nicely packaged, and I recommend it -- particularly at the very reasonable price it's going at. However: one weakness I found: while this material sounds great over my stereo system, I find, perhaps because of weaknesses in the initial analog recordings, that on headphones it leaves something to desired, which is a bit of a shame. (Dub is great music to fall asleep to, or just relax to, and I often play dub on my discman late at night, but not THIS set, due to this weakness -- the music just doesn't divide that interestingly, mostly sitting there as a big dubby mass in my forehead, uh, if you see what I mean). Don't let that STOP you; I'm still glad I have this set. It's good enough that I can forgive it this slight limitation.

if you love authentic classic dub don't miss this. great value, clean simple package.

These are wonderful CDs for those who love Reggae but don't always like the lyric. I played them at my last diner party and many of my friends were interested in buying the same set.