Big Brother and the Holding Company "Cheap Thrills" [1968]

With a live album this amateurishly terrible, it's a wonder anyone bothered with Woodstock in the first place. Lousy sound recording only bested in lameness by the band's songwriting and playing abilities, "Cheap Thrills" should have been called "…And Even Cheaper Talent." Featuring Janis Joplin in her earlier incarnation (i.e. "drunken mess," not "skag zombie"), about the only thing this record accomplishes is making The Jefferson Airplane sound like they knew what they're doing. So gritty you can practically smell the dirt on her feet, Joplin's vocal delivery staggers from alley-cat howl to sheet-metal-grinding falsetto (made worse by her having given Steven Tyler the idea to use it). By the abominable cover of "Summertime," she's already emerged as a full-blown caricature of herself; it was all downhill for Janis from here. Sluggish hippie blooze with guitar solos that sound like stoned scales practice do nothing to support her; I keep listening for Janis to collapse in a pathetic heap onstage. Next time Baby Boomers want to brag about how good 60s music was, go ahead and make them eat their words by forcing them to listen to this shit.