Grand Royal Records cashes in its chips

It has been eight years and 93 official releases with one man, Michael Diamond, at the helm the whole time. But more than that, Grand Royal was an experiment, an experiment in what a record label could be.

While some may say that the experiment ultimately failed with the announcement of Grand Royal’s closing last week, Mike D and the rest of the Beastie Boys certainly cannot be faulted for trying. In an age where there is seemingly one goal for a record company – the acquisition of unthinkable amounts of mon-ey – Grand Royal was always a label created by artists for artists.

What was most striking, though, about Grand Royal was the diversity of the artists on the label. Granted, there will always be the Matador’s and Kran-ky’s of the world, labels established for the underground music scene.

One will rarely find a label that brought the world acts like Buffalo Daughter (Japanese pop like America had never heard before), Atari Teenage Riot (German noise rock that is more noise than rock), Bis (outrageously fun Scottish dance music) and Sean Lennon (the talented son of John). This is just a taste of what Grand Royal was, for while diversity was the soul of the label, never was it short on finding quality acts.

In 1993, while grunge was the only thought on the musical landscape for most, the Beastie Boys felt it was time for a change, and accordingly came up with the idea of creating a record label. It was never supposed to be a major label; in fact, it was never supposed to be much of a label at all.

Originally, it was simply a chance for the world to hear their friends’ music. Among those friends, of course, was Luscious Jackson, which went on to be a major act in pop music. But that’s all it was originally and the reason it could not possibly last.

Last year with the release of At the Drive In’s massively popular Relationship of Command, Grand Royal realized the difficulties that come with being a major label economically and otherwise. Ultimately they were unable and unwilling to be a “grown-up” label and handle the kind of responsibility that necessarily comes with it.

BS2000’s Simply Mortified was the last record released by Grand Royal. The record is moronic, catchy, fun, political and through it all, brilliant. It was the ultimate Grand Royal record, comprising all the contradictions and absurdity that Grand Royal had become and all the levity and stupidity that will be missed.