Cheap Thrills - BONUS TRACKS
Artist: Big Brother & the Holding Company
Community Score: 10.00

Cheap Thrills, the major-label debut of Janis Joplin, was one of the most eagerly anticipated, and one of the most successful, albums of 1968. Joplin and Big Brother had earned extensive press notice ever since they played the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, but their only recorded work was a poorly produced, self-titled Mainstream album,... Read More

Star Collection
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Revelation
Artist: Man
Community Score: 10.00

A blast from Man's psychedelic past, this debut shows the band making an auspicious debut with Hammond drenched guitar rock. It's easy to see, between the spacey effects and unearthly vocal choruses of their single "Sudden Life," how Man positioned themselves between the space prog of Nektar and the acid-fried rock of the Quicksilver Messenger... Read More

Best of Cream
Artist: Cream

The first of a long line of Cream anthologies, the 1969 Best of Cream (released originally on Atco, since reissued on Polydor) was a ten-track compilation featuring nearly all of Cream's U.K. and U.S. single hits. The exceptions were "Wrapping Paper" and "Anyone for Tennis," which were not much missed, especially when instead you got tracks like... Read More

Vanilla Fudge - ATCO
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Community Score: 10.00

In a debut consisting of covers, nobody could accuse Vanilla Fudge of bad taste in their repertoire; with stoned-out, slowed-down versions of such then-recent classics as "Ticket to Ride," "Eleanor Rigby," and "People Get Ready," they were setting the bar rather high for themselves. Even the one suspect choice -- Sonny Bono's "Bang Bang" --... Read More

Near the Beginning
Artist: Vanilla Fudge
Community Score: 10.00

Near the Beginning is an excellent title for this self-produced Vanilla Fudge recording. The fourth of five albums recorded during 1967, 1968, and 1969, the band themselves worked to get closer to what made them very special. What made them special was their treatment of other people's material. Reworking Junior Walker's 1965 hit is interesting,... Read More

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Artist: Iron Butterfly
Community Score: 7.50

With its endless, droning minor-key riff and mumbled vocals, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is arguably the most notorious song of the acid rock era. According to legend, the group was so stoned when they recorded the track that they could neither pronounce the title "In the Garden of Eden" or end the track, so it rambles on for a full 17 minutes, which... Read More

Wheels of Fire
Artist: Cream
Community Score: 6.33

Wheels of Fire was a two-album set, one disc recorded in the studio, the second disc recorded on stage in San Francisco. Side three contains the definitive live version of what became Clapton's signature piece, Robert Johnson's "Crossroads," plus a version of "Spoonful" that clocks in just short of 17 minutes. On such pieces, Cream approached... Read More

Disraeli Gears
Artist: Cream
Community Score: 7.13

The threesome of Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, and legendary guitarist Eric Clapton forming the band Cream was a monumental effort of jazz, blues, and psychedelic rock during the British rock period of the late 1960s. Cream, with their raw fury of intense sound, was renowned for their rare talent of taking songs of complex arrangements and making... Read More

Volunteers
Artist: Jefferson Airplane
Community Score: 8.00

Controversial at the time, delayed because of fights with the record company over lyrical content and the original title (Volunteers of America), Volunteers was a powerful release that neatly closed out and wrapped up the '60s. Here, the Jefferson Airplane presents itself in full revolutionary rhetoric, issuing a call to "tear down the walls"... Read More