History

For Immediate Release
August 31, 2001

Grand Royal
RIP
1993-2001

Mounting debts, decreasing assets and exceedingly harsh industry conditions have forced the venerable Grand Royal label to close its doors. The announcement came today that the label could no longer operate at its current loss.

"This is one of the most difficult decisions we’ve ever had to make," said co-founder Mike Diamond a.k.a Mike D of Beastie Boys. "Over the years the Grand Royal family had grown to include some of the most talented musicians and staff in the business. It’s tragic that the same growth has also produced an overhead and infrastructure that can no longer viable."

Grand Royal was founded by Beastie Boys in 1993, the first release on the label being Luscious Jackson’s now classic In Search Of Manny. Within a few years, the label had gone from a public hobby to a full service operation, with a roster featuring Atari Teenage Riot, Ben Lee, Sean Lennon, BS2000 and others, and Luscious Jackson’s Fever In, Fever Out being certified gold. More recently, Grand Royal releases At The Drive-In’s critically lauded Relationship Of Command, which went on to sell nearly 1 million copies worldwide.

"Our intentions were always simply to create a home for exciting music and the people who were passionate about it," Diamond said. "It really sucks that we can’t continue to do that."

As you can see in the statement above, Grand Royal records (the record company that was formed by the beastie boys in 1992, and mostly run by Mike D) closed its doors in 2001. This site was mainly created cause of the lack of other good Grand Royal sites (basically since the official site closed there are none). I always loved this record label, but it was hard to find info on what they had released over 9 years of existing. So this Site started basically with a question on the beastie boys message board in January 2001, asking what was released on grand royal. I got a few responses and got searching on the World Wide Web, at first it was just trying to see what was released and the additional cover. But in the summer of 2002 I had the time, and started to search for more info about the releases (tracks, producer, year, etc...). And so this page began to take shape. And now I think the website looks good enough to get a public view. There are still some release that I didn't figure out, so if you can help me please let me know. This discography only contains the releases with the "GR" catalogue number.
Begin 1998 Grand Royal started an office in England, this for better distribution in Europe, but not long after that, there came an offshoot of Grand Royal, named "ZubiZaretta", from small acorns grow big trees.

"Grand Royal, Guaranteed Every Time"

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