Boss Shots gone?

[vlad]

http://store.universal-music.co.uk/icat ... cktoblack/

Anyone knows what's the story here?...

[Mick Sleeper]

Trojan has become a mystery... Ever since Sanctuary went out of business, they have not had a consistent web presence. Seems that every year some "new and improved" Trojan site comes along promising interesting things, but it never happens. At present, other than Discogs, there is no comprehensive listing of Trojan's huge catalog, especially the flood of re-releases they did between 2000-2008 or so. Very frustrating.

[99thfloor]

Sanctuary, which Trojan is a part of, has been sold by Universal to BMG. All the titles that were released by Universal and had the Trojan logo are now out of print. This does not seem to affect the Treasure Isle, Island, Top Deck and Front Line titles. I am not sure what the role of the "Boss Shots" name is in all this.

[Mick Sleeper]

"Boss Shots" seemed to be some kind of umbrella web site for Trojan, Treasure Isle, Island, and Virgin (all owned by Universal at one point).

At present, the Trojan web site promises "a rocksteady future", but when you click on the "shop" link, you get a grand total of six items for sale! I'll believe this rocksteady future when I see it...

http://www.trojanrecords.com/trojan--a- ... ady-future

[99thfloor]

The Trojan website is (or at least it was) separate and independent from the Trojan label after the ownership of Sanctuary changed. It seems the rights to sell merchandise etc., basically everything to do with the Trojan name except the actual music, was not a part of the deal. But what is intriguing is that the first 9 titles that show up in that shop are upcoming reissues of older titles, so apparently someone is putting out product again.

[99thfloor]

An update on this, in case people are not aware. Several Trojan titles from both the Sanctuary and the Universal years have been been reissued, and there's more coming:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_adv_m_ ... Submit.y=2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_adv_m_ ... Submit.y=3

(sorry for the enormously lenghty adresses in the links...)

BMG owns the rights now, but the ones I have seen look like the previous versions (no slipcases where applicable though), except in the fine print where it says "owned by...BMG...under exclusive licence to PIAS", so not sure how this works. Notable among these are the "fan club" titles "Reggae Girl" and "Reggae with the Hippy Boys". Also upcoming are re-releases of several in the "Trojan Presents..." series, among them the "Rocksteady", "Roots" and "Dub" volumes (I missed these the first time around since they went out of print pretty fast).

Now these are all recycled titles, but the rumour is there are new titles on the horizon as well (one that is already announced is the RSD "Rude Boy Rumble"). The Trojan Records webpage mentions nothing about any of this, maybe they are independent from this business (some of these reissued titles do appear in their "shop" section, but they are all "currently out of stock", not sure what's up with that).