Cheap Thrills

So much raw power here. Equal parts blues and psychedelic. And she had such an incredible voice.
I just say, some parts had me checking my watch.

Starts off pretty bad, but improves when Janis Joplin starts singing.

Honestly, though, if you want "blues rock", you can do a lot better than this. There's a lot of messy guitar and instrumentation all around, and most of the songs here don't even come close to "Piece of My Heart".

Solid album. Three great songs (Summertime, Piece of My Heart, Ball and Chain), and the rest is perfectly serviceable. Janis was a one of a kind.

3.5
Joplin has such a unique voice, solid album

Great artwork, some good songs, not at all what I would have expected from Janis Joplin at first. I liked it but I won't go with it on a desert island.

Live album with crowd noise that drags at times. Listening to Ball and Chain in its entirety has it living up to its name. I think it would have been better to be there than to listen to the recording.

Screeching, howling, end of the 60s rock 'n' roll. Piece of My Heart rocks as you'd expect, but it's Ball and Chain that floats my boat the most here, mostly due to the tortured sounds coming out of the guitar, which match nicely with Janis's tortured vocals. The rest is all good, although not sure why the producer felt the need to add fake crowd noise to make it seem like a live album.

Not a bad album and Janis Joplin rocks!

I've heard a lot of great things about Janis Joplin over the years. I hope her solo stuff is a better introduction to her work because this was disappointing. Often times her voice is pretty hard to listen to. I get the impression that it's one of those voices you have to listen to over and over again and it will grow on you. However, there was nothing else here musically that was exciting enough to make me want to do that.

Tbh, I think the racist artwork is also souring my opinion on the music a bit. I try to be objective. But, when THAT'S the first thing I see, my immediate instinct is to hope I'll dislike it. I can't help it.

It was fine

3.4/5

I'm starting to realise as someone in their 20s I'm ok probably notably you get than most people leaving reviews on this site

I like what this represents and I know it was revolutionary at the time, just never really cared for Janice.

This was a straight-up, funky time. I've not always been a huge fan of Janis Joplin, but her singing works well with the band here.

I most liked the jamming sections with the phat guitars and groovy riffs. There's some great guitar work in there, and some real upbeat jams.

3.5 rounded up.

Not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t that! … I liked it 👍

A good blues rock album with nice jams and lengthy songs, elevated greatly by Janis Joplin's stellar vocals.
I love that they can go full on rocking as well as psychedelic and soulful.
Unfortunately, the B-side pales in comparison to the A-side, keeping it from being a real gem.

3.5/5 - strong

Love the cover art, it’s pretty psychedelic and all over the place. Reminds me of the underground comix style.

As for the music, this album showcases Janis’ vocals. It’s raspy and fits so well with their blues sound. The Big Brother members seem to compose based around Janis.

The mix definitely needs to be remastered on Spotify. Even at max volume on my phone I can’t fully appreciate the music. Overall it was pretty groovy, which I think is all you need for the blues. And they did their homework pretty well (3.5-4).

I imagine I would have never gone out of my way to find this, but this is some real solid psychedelic rock. Piece of My Heart is the standout track and a solid 5/5.

My last blues rock experience wasn't that great (sorry Rolling Stones) so I went into this album somewhat timidly. I am BLOWN AWAY. Joplin's voice is perfectly suited to this music, and there are times when this rocks harder than any Zeppelin album. It's fucking awesome! I love the audience noises to fool people into thinking it's a live album hahaha

I am not a fan of this. The exaltation of Janis Joplin has always felt like it was borne of "let's not speak ill of the dead" vibes. But the band is not really doing anything interesting, and I just don't find Janis to be a particularly interesting vocalist.