Post Description

Big Brother and the Holding Company - Cheap Thrills (1968)
Genre: Psychodelic/Blues Rock | 320kb mp3|87mb

Janis Joplin has been gone for more than 32 years. That's a timespan five years longer than she actually lived! (She died, as did Hendrix and Morrison, at age 27.) In the intervening years, there has been some debate among critics,as well as the listening public, regarding her actual contribution to popular music. Did she single-handedly reinvent the role of the female popular singer, and if even she did, does that make her recordings still listenable 30 years hence. Or was her music in fact a "you-had-to-be-there" phenomenon?

As for the notion that "you really had to be there...," well, I kinda was and kinda wasn't. I grew up in the sticks and never saw Janis perform live, much to my regret. But I listened intently to all her records and watched her on TV and film. And I did GET IT, but not right away. Having read about Janis before I ever heard her, I imagined her having some dark, rich soulful voice. The raw, ***ed "whiskey voice" evidenced on CHEAP THRILLS came as something of a surprise and, admittedly, took some getting used to, but eventually I acquired the taste, and then some. Janis's voice was indeed huge, but it was also raw, scorching and often painful.( I did eventually hear that dark, soulful voice too, by the way, but it belonged to another singer entirely--Mother Earth's equally great, but decidedly diferent Tracy Nelson.)

So CHEAP THRILLS, the first fully realized album featuring Janis Joplin, remains controversial to this day. Is it the best expression of Janis' (and Big Brother's) inspired amateurism? Or is it a sloppy, slapdash affair that only suggests what Joplin and the band were capable of in concert? I think it's the former and would maintain that no subsequent Joplin effort captured the exuberence and kinetic energy that she embodied. In fact, few other albums define the late 60s as well as this one. I love the fact that it was still a BAND at this juncture, and that Janis did not necessarily sing lead on every track (including the album's classic opener "Combination of the Two"). OK, she still overpowers when singing back-up, but the point was that this band was NOT ust Big SISTER and the Holding Co.

In fact, as others have noted, the unique, stuttering, almost manic guitar work of James Gurley and Sam Andrew is like nothing you've ever heard before. The opening for "Ball and Chain" alone sounds like Demiurges awakening from the bowels of the earth. No wonder, Janis is inspired to almost unheard of vocal pyrotechnics in response: she had all that beautiful noise to compete with.


Track Listing:
1. Combination Of The Two (Album Version)
2. I Need A Man To Love (Album Version)
3. Summertime (Album Version)
4. Piece Of My Heart (Album Version)
5. Turtle Blues (Album Version)
6. Oh, Sweet Mary (Album Version)
7. Ball And Chain (Album Version)
8. Roadblock (Album Version)