Customer Reviews
Bring back Big Bro & the Holding Co. - By: Moz, 25 Feb 2007 
For me Janis's albums (not bootlegs or compliations) split down the middle - those with Big Bro & the Holding Co & those without. Those with are the better, the happier, where she felt part of something. They're guitar based psychedelic rock at its best. They're raw, earthy, exciting, naive & bursting with energy. Cheap Thrills is best (live) & the studio Big Brother & the Holding Company an interesting, quirky innocent debut album.
Those without, Pearl & Kozmic Blues, are the unhappy Janis, full production, no band, orchestrated, brass & keyboard albums. They lack the passion & excitement & raw energy. I still play them often & love them dearly but they're not the best. The spark has gone. That said, Pearl is the better of the two.
Hard Candy - By: , 24 Jun 2002 This is truly a quite fantastic album. Aesthetically, conceptually & for the first timein Janis's career, technically, near unimpeachable, it succeeds where 'Cheap Thrills' fails; i.e.in transmitting her particular intelligence & insouciance, albeit indirectly, to the audience that could appreciate them best; an audience largely constituted, perhaps ironically, of middle class men. The smell of sex & money still lingers, but it is now, brilliantly & paradoxically, the function of reasonably judged 'excess', & so has been neutered to a degree that biographical fallacy could only confuse our understanding of.
The antagonistic symbiosis that forms the crux of Janis's relationship with the Full Tilt Boogie Band, is the centre piece of a series of contradictions & counterpoints implicitin the album as a whole. Lyrically, the salient theme of high expectation/low return relationships, is enlivened by the interplay between stridency regarding her perceived
'masculinity' & nervousness regarding her femininity. Sonically, sparse drumming points up the conspicuous rhythm guitar, & Janis's voice now sounds equal parts 'black' & 'white'. Less specifically, the album's crescendos anticipate its diminuendos, & ultimately its pathos acticipates & defeats its ennui. The excellent choice of covers serves to highlight the thouhtfulness & pace of a very substantial & disarmingly inviting album.
Still sounds fresh today - By: Pieter, 19 Jun 2002 
What struck me about Pearl upon listening to it again recently, is the authenticity of the music. Some reviewer once claimed that rock merely gets stale whereas pop music rots with time. There is nothing stale about Joplin & her band on this all-time classic. After all these years, it remains a magnificent listening experience because of the quality of the songs, the band's tight playing & the impressive emotional range of Joplin's vocals. Unlike on Cheap Thrills, where there was mostly a cosmic battle between her voice & Big Brother's heavy metal onslaught, here the voice is the star. My favourites on an album of classics include the incredible Me & Bobby McGee, the tender A Woman Left Lonely, the nervous Half Moon, the emotional Cry Baby, the buoyant Get It While You Can & the plaintive/humorous Mercedes Benz. Perfect arrangements, brilliant playing & masterly vocalization combine here to create a timeless masterpiece.
The classic cuts of this classic cutter of the 60's. - By: Frederick Vreeland, 21 Nov 2001 For me personally this album has heart-wrenching memories. But more than nostalgia, it perfectly embodies its epoch -- just as Joplin embodied everything that was good & badin the stellar sixties. Her voice is haunting, her material golden.
