Best Reagae CD ?

If you are looking for an "audiophile" quality reggae CD, there is a an "audiophile" quality recording on the Wildchild/Mapleshade label. The title is "Ras Mek Peace", and the group is a Washington D.C. band "Midnite". I bought the CD as a listening experiment and found it is not to my taste. If you would like to have the CD, I will give it to you for the cost of the postage. Drop me a private E-mail if interested: SDCamp1113@cs.com Best - Scott Campbell

Bob Marley "Natty Dread" Indespensable.

Opps, never was much of a speller...
Well aware the question is loaded.
My intentions are simple
-to round-out an pathetically thin collection with some essentials.
thanks for the posts

p.s.
Hotcorocket I like some of the older Jamaican music, but not sure where to start.

My tastes for reggae generally steer towards older vintage recordings from the late '60's to early 70's with a strong leaning towards the classic dub plates from such masters as King Tubby, Lee Perry, Prince Jammy, etc. One of the things I find most intriguing about reggae is that it's admittedly limited musical structure inherently lends to it's strengths as it is a music revolving around texture, space, and a general feel...a 'vibe' as it were. Any type of 'tune' or song structure is merely a platform for the music to lean on and stretch out to. That said, I would recommend almost anything that Blood & Fire (a recent UK label feverishly devoted to lovingly compiled and remastered vintage reggae recordings) has put out as well as Pressure Sounds, another fine UK label overseen by Adrian Sherwood. Sherwood himself has produced (on his On-U-Sound) label some of the finest modern reggae recordings and done quite a bit to expand the genre with bands like African Head Charge & New Age Steppers who really use the genre of reggae itself as a platform for experimental sound structures...dub for the modern age. Some personal favorites:

Yabby You: 'Jesus Dread'
Burning Spear: 'Social Living' and 'Marcus Garvey'
v/a: 'Roots Techniques' and 'Techniques in Dub'
(comps of recordings by producer Winston Riley)
Jackie Mittoo: 'The Keyboard King of Studio One'
Augustus Pablo: 'East of the River Nile' and 'King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown'
King Tubby & Soul Syndicate: 'Freedom Sounds in
Dub'
The Congos: "Heart of the Congos"
Israel Vibration: "The Same Song"

There's much more stuff out there of course, and a lot I've yet to discover, but there's a few ideas. Don't forget to check out Mr. Marley of course as well as Lee Perry & his productions for the Upsetters and others...the Arkology box set is hard to go wrong with on that end and there are a lot of great compilations out there too.
If you dig into the more recent catalog of On-U-Sound recordings, a good place to start would be with Creation Rebel and Singers & Players with a sidestep into the Dub Syndicate if you want to dig further. Enjoy the sounds...

I just happened to notice your note on the post just above that you like the older Jamaican music and thought I might note that you might look for recordings being put out by the Studio One label. These are collections of vintage recordings from Studio One, one of the most influential Jamaican studios of the '60's, run by a man named Clement S. Dodd. I've seen quite a few interesting collections of this stuff out there by folks like Horace Andy, Ernest Ranglin, early Burning Spear, Delroy Wilson, etc. and even own a couple that are quite nice. The Trojan label seems to do a good job at keeping that era of Jamaican music alive as well and has numerous box sets that would probably serve as good additions to any collection.