Description
In many facets, Big Brother and the Holding Companys Cheap Thrills is the quintessential album to spring from the outcome of the Summer of Love. Best known as Janis Joplins major-label debut, the 1968 set arrived when the countercultural movement was in full swing and before co-optation, drugs, and violence signaled the fall of the era. Ranked #338 on Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it puts a female singer in the prominent position traditionally given to a male and showcases a band pouring a potent cocktail of fiery psychedelic, blues, and folk sounds that informed the unfettered creativity of the San Francisco scene. Produced by John Simon, Cheap Thrills also features one of the most iconic and elaborate album covers in history. Now, thanks to Mobile Fidelity, the instantly identifiable effort also possesses sonics equivalent to its visual and musical status.
Cut at 45RPM and pressed on dead-quiet vinyl at RTI, the iconic audiophile labels analog reissue intensifies the quintets storied sophomore effort. Due to the wider grooves, this pressing benefits from increased spaciousness, punchiness, energy, pacing, and dynamics. Joplins hurricane-force singing reverberates with texture, grittiness, and volume. An arresting array of instrumental colors and tones comes on with clearer separation and depth. While previous pressings find the band and Joplins voice in competition with one another for room, both emerge as distinct entities. Always noted for its rawness, Cheap Thrills sounds as close to live as it gets, an unadulterated portrait of nervy rock n roll delivered with exuberant enthusiasm and all-out determination. This is music at is most visceral.
Having drawn national attention for their legendary performance at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967, Big Brother and Joplin faced huge expectations to deliver a studio set that would convey their onstage vibrancy and potency. Cheap Thrills does this and more, becoming one of 1968s most commercially successful releases that remained on the charts the week Joplin announced her separation from the ensemble. Contrary to popular belief, only one of the albums songs, Ball and Chain, was recorded live. Everything else owes to the unhinged, spirit-elevating performances and true collaboration between vocalist and band that manifests itself throughout the records 37-minute-plus running time. Merging biker-babe ruggedness with wounded-bird poignancy, Joplins expressive belting, mega-watt moaning, and sensitive crooning take center stage. Yet her bandmates match every step with explosive rhythms, heavy guitar-driven blues, and assertive solos that take inspiration from free-form jazz.
Indeed, Cheap Thrills still exhilarates not only due to Joplins almighty singing but because of boundary-shredding arrangements that reflect the periods anything-is-possible mindset. More so than any other musicians Joplin encountered, the members of Big Brother pushed limits on convention via soirees into acid-dipped psychedelia and its orbiting sonic galaxies. Together, they aim and achieve an aural mythos that makes a permanent connection between artist and audience by way of eliminating traditional divisions. Such communal power is evident on the mind-bending version of Big Mama Thorntons Ball and Chain and insistent, sinewy I Need a Man to Love. Its also obvious during quieter moments, whether the tripped-out, twisted, and curvaceous contours of George and Ira Gershwins Summertime or restrained, throwback acoustic blues of Turtle Blues.
Yes, Joplin presents and rallies against loneliness and desperation in a cathartic language few had heard before or since. Whats even more significant is the fearlessness, toughness, synergy, and sexual danger pulsing through every song, including the take-on-all-comers challenge Piece of My Heart, which the collective attacks with career-making ferocity. Like Robert Crumbs daring pop-art illustrations that grace the cover, they simultaneously lure and dare the listener to enter a space where outsiders run free and where outlaws are heard above the mainstream din.
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