Cheap Thrills is the second studio album by American rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, released on August 12, 1968, by Columbia Records. Cheap Thrills was the band's final album with lead singer Janis Joplin before she left to begin a solo career. Producer John Simon incorporated recordings of crowd noises to give the impression of a live album, for which it was subsequently mistaken by many listeners. Only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded live in April 13, 1968 at the Winterland Ballroom.
Cheap Thrills was a critical and commercial success, reaching number one on the Billboard Top LPs chart for eight nonconsecutive weeks in 1968. In 2007, Cheap Thrills was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album number 338 in its 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". It was repositioned to number 372 in the 2020 list.
History
Big Brother obtained a considerable amount of attention after their 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival and had released their debut album soon after. The followup, Cheap Thrills, was a great success, reaching number one on the charts for eight nonconsecutive weeks in 1968. Columbia Records offered the band a new recording contract, but it took seven months to extricate the band from their contract with Mainstream Records. The album features three cover songs ("Summertime", "Piece of My Heart" and "Ball and Chain"). The voice of Bill Graham is heard in the live introduction of the band at the beginning of "Combination of the Two". The album's overall raw sound effectively captures the band's energetic and lively concerts. The LP was released in both stereo and mono formats with the original monophonic pressing now a rare collector's item. The album had been considered for quadraphonic format in the early 1970s, and in 2002, it was released as a multichannel Sony SACD with a 1:38 extended ending to "Piece of My Heart". The original quadraphonic mix remains unreleased.
Artwork and title
The cover was drawn by underground cartoonist Robert Crumb after the band's original cover idea, a photo of the group naked in bed together, was vetoed by Columbia Records. Crumb had originally intended his art for the LP back cover, with a portrait of Janis Joplin to grace the front. However, Joplin, an avid fan of Crumb's work, demanded that Columbia place his illustration on the front cover. It ranks number nine on Rolling Stones list of 100 greatest album covers. Crumb later authorized the sale of prints of the cover, some of which he signed before sale.
Columbia Records art director John Berg said, "[Janis] Joplin commissioned it, and she delivered Cheap Thrills to me personally in the office. There were no changes with R. Crumb. He refused to be paid, saying, 'I don't want Columbia's filthy lucre.'"
In at least one early edition, the words "HARRY KIRSHNER! (D. GETZ)" are faintly visible in the word balloon of the turbaned man, apparently referring to a track that was dropped from the final sequence. The words "ART: R. CRUMB" replace them.
The album was initially to be titled Sex, Dope and Cheap Thrills, but the title was disallowed by Columbia Records.
The artwork was parodied for the cover of the 2012 album Deep Chills by Lords of Acid.
Release and reception
Cheap Thrills was released in the summer of 1968, one year after Big Brother's debut album, and reached number one on the Billboard Top LPs chart in its eighth week in October. It kept the top spot for eight nonconsecutive weeks, while the single "Piece of My Heart" also became a huge hit. By the end of the year, Cheap Thrills was the most successful album of 1968, having sold nearly a million copies. However, the success was short-lived, as Joplin left the group for a solo career in December 1968.
Outtakes originally to have appeared on the album have since been released on Joplin compilations such as Farewell Song (in which Big Brother's original instruments were replaced with studio musicians from 1983, angering the band) and the Janis compilation box set featuring all original studio songs and live recordings. The 1999 rerelease of Cheap Thrills features the outtakes "Flower in the Sun" and "Roadblock" as well as live performances of "Magic of Love" and "Catch Me Daddy" as bonus material. In 2018, Columbia released Sex, Dope & Cheap Thrills, an album of outtakes and other materials from the Cheap Thrills sessions.