\n(Editor’s Note: This album was initially reviewed as part of the
\nJanis Joplin<\/i> Box Of Pearls
\nbox set – hence the “Box Set Rating” at the bottom of the
\npage.)<\/i><\/p>\n
\nCheap Thrills<\/i> was the breakthrough album for Janis Joplin
\nand Big Brother & The Holding Company. Topping the charts for
\neight weeks and spawning a top 20 single, this was the album that
\nsolidified the reputation that the band had spawned with their set
\nat the Monterey Pop festival. It also marked the end of the band;
\nnot terribly long after the album’s release, Joplin left the band
\nto pursue a solo career.<\/p>\n
When I first bought a battered vinyl copy of
\nCheap Thrills<\/i> some years ago, I was unimpressed.
\nThis<\/i> was the album that helped to shape the music scene of
\nthe late ’60s? (Then again, keep in mind the first time I heard the
\nGrateful Dead, I didn’t much care for them, either.)<\/p>\n
Now, with the re-mastered release (containing four bonus
\ntracks), I got a chance to re-think my original position… only to
\nfind it had improved by the narrowest of margins. The time on the
\nroad shows in both positive and negative ways, and
\nCheap Thrills<\/i> still remains an album that you either get or
\nyou don’t… and I don’t.<\/p>\n
Musically, Sam Andrew and crew had worked themselves into a
\ntight musical unit by the time these tracks (some of which were
\nrecorded live at the Fillmore Auditorium) were cut. But on the
\nother end of the spectrum, you can hear the strain on Joplin’s
\nvocals. On some tracks, like “Piece Of My Heart,” the raggedness
\nfits the mood perfectly. But on others like “I Need A Man To Love”
\nand “Summertime”, it’s almost painful to hear how she’s shredding
\nher throat. She had vocal power beyond many female blues singers;
\npity that she overused that power.<\/p>\n
“Piece Of My Heart,” the hit single from
\nCheap Thrills<\/i>, remains a classic song that has lost little
\nof its power over the course of three decades. Likewise,
\n“Combination Of The Two” is an underrated classic that allows
\nJoplin the fiery freedom to cut loose with her vocal abilities. In
\na way, I prefer “Combination Of The Two” over “Piece Of My Heart,”
\nmaybe because it hasn’t been overplayed over the years, and remains
\na secret treasure locked away for fans to discover. (Think of it
\nthis way: which of the two tracks
\nisn’t<\/i> on the
\nGreatest Hits<\/i> album, though it should be?)<\/p>\n
Of the remaining tracks that made up the original
\nCheap Thrills<\/i>, there seems to be an overreliance on 12-bar
\nblues that wasn’t there on the band’s first album. “I Need A Man To
\nLove,” “Turtle Blues” and “Ball And Chain” (the last track Joplin’s
\ntribute to the song’s author, “Big Mama” Thornton) all seem to
\nhammer the reliance home – maybe this was one of the limiting
\nfactors that Joplin saw with Big Brother & The Holding Comapny.
\nThe band’s cover of “Summertime” (co-written by George Gershwin)
\njust doesn’t fit the mood that well.<\/p>\n
What makes
\nCheap Thrills<\/i> raise a few notches in my book is the addition
\nof the four bonus tracks. Had songs like “Flower In The Sun,”
\n“Catch Me Daddy” and “Magic Of Love” been included on the original
\nalbum, my opinion of it as a teenager would have been much higher.
\n(Of the new additions, only “Roadblock” doesn’t do anything for me;
\nit almost seems like a song looking for a direction.)<\/p>\n
\nCheap Thrills<\/i> is the kind of album that anyone who wants to
\ndiscover what the ’60s were like will want to run out and grab. And
\nif you want to discover more about Joplin than a compilation album
\nwill show you, it’s worth the trip. But
\nCheap Thrills<\/i> shows a band whose musical focus was changing
\n– and it’s a shame we didn’t get a chance to see if they would have
\ngotten things back on the right road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6125],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36260","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-big-brother-and-the-holding-company","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36260"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36260"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}