Janis Joplin

Having long ago wondered how she'd "hold up," I eventually concluded the answer was that I didn't feel like playing her records anymore. But it was just the opposite: one reason the music triumphs more miraculously than ever is that it's damned hard to listen to, fading into the background about as smoothly as Ornette or the Dolls or PJ Harvey. The most polished product here is the least compelling--it's in her demos, her live fracases with Kozmic Blues and Full Tilt Boogie, and especially her rough anything-goes with Big Brother that she demolishes the canard that she was some kind of blues imitator or hippie fool. For her, blues was a language to be twisted and shredded in the service of a utopian quest, a quest I swear she had the stuff to take somewhere. My only quarrel with this superb re-creation, which unveils many terrific previously unissueds and contextualizes several older finds, is that it sacrifices live rarities like "Ego Blues" to the Kosmic Blues album. You want to know more, read the liner essays by Ellen Willis and Ann Powers, which I hope aren't over the Grammy guys' heads. (Grade: A)