Any comps. as good as the Soul Jazz 100% Dynamite series?

"Tougher Than Tough" history of jamaican music box set

Check out stuff on Blood & Fire.

(haha!)

TTT is really the other thing with quite that breadth (actually there is a Trojan thing that is kind of similar.) If you want dancehall though get VP's Dancehall 101 series. For early roots/reggage get the original 2CD Rebel Music on Trojan. And for late ska/rocksteady/early reggae the Tighten Up series is pretty good.

Trojan do some good comps as well- I got an excellent King Tubby compilation by them recently. They do tend to endlessly recycle their back catalogue, though, so be careful not to buy the same thing twice.

those soul jazz comps are all over the place stylistically. kind of free style picknmix reggae. i don't know who else is so, ah, a-historic.

The Trojan compilations are great, if a bit more focussed. The Dynamite comps are great Jamaican music primers. I'd say pick the style you like best and get the following:

If it's the slower late 60s stuff you like then look no further than Let's Do Rocksteady on Trojan. For faster horn driven stuff there are thousands of decent Ska comps.
For more Mod-based classic Reggae, you cannot afford to miss the Tighten Up series. Get the Best of Tighten Up on Trojan - you won't be sorry.
One Step Beyond is a good on if you want the classic ska hits plus some second wave stuff; Dancehall 69 is more obscure Mod Ska; Loch Ness Monster is full of weirdities from the sixties too.
For Dub, a lot of people would recommend the Trojan Dub boxset, however I'd say pick up a Lee Perry or King Tubby compilation, or get something by Horace Andy if you like your Dub with a few extra vocals.
Jamaican Jazz stuff can't really get better than Cedric Im Brooks and the Magical Light of Saba. It's an incredible blend of Reggae, Jazz, traditional Nyah Binghi drumming and Pop and it's truly awesome.
If you like your stuff a bit more modern there are plenty of Lovers Rock and Dancehall compilations to check out. For Lovers get anything by Susan Cadogan or Beres Hammond. With Dancehall, particularly noughties Dancehall then just take your pick from the plethora of comps on offer.
I went through a phase of picking up a new Trojan compilation every month and it really helped broaden my knowledge and appreciation of reggae. I tend to shy away from the 3-cd boxsets, tempting as they are, as I find the whole affair a bit cheap and badly put together. I prefer to shell out a couple more quid and go for quality rather than quantity.

the dynamite series would have been superspecial if they'd written, like, sleevenotes.

Yeh, agreed - the liner notes are totally useless. I guess the idea is it's a party album, not a Reggae collector's compilation and you're to enjoy the music on it's own basis. However I don't think they even put the year the songs came out most of the time so it's a bit weird when you get, say Supercat next to the Paragons or whatever.