Sony Legacy re-released four classic Janis Joplin LPs originally on Columbia – Big Brother & the Holding Company, Cheap Thrills, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, and Pearl – as a four-disc set available on 180-gram vinyl. The cover art was re-created from the original LP jackets.

18 Essential Songs is a one-disc distillation of the triple-disc Janis box set. Running 70 minutes, it is a more extensive best-of than the ten-track 1973 Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits album.

Whether it was singing with Big Brother And The Holding Company or with her Full Tilt Boogie Band, Janis Joplin had one of the most identifiable, most emotional and most soulful voices ever recorded. Coming to San Francisco from Texas in 1966, Janis soon had the music world’s total attention, simply blowing the audience away at Monterey in 1967 while fronting Big Brother and gaining a record deal with Columbia Records in the process. After that, it was hit after hit with songs like her signature Piece Of My Heart, Cry Baby, and her Number One take of Kris Kristofferson’s present day standard Me And Bobby McGee, all included here. Through it all, Janis Joplin established herself as one of the very best and one of the most important singers and song interpreters ever to hit the music scene.

"Big Brother & the Holding Company," is an early recording by Big Brother and the Holding Company, a psychedelic blues rock San Francisco-based band during the late 1960's. The record survives largely because of their great, great chick singer, Janis Joplin, of course, who joined them on a Chicago gig. Although Joplin fans will know that she did not, unfortunately, survive the 1970's, as she passed on October 4, 1970 (aged 27), in Los Angeles, California. But in her brief career, despite her troubled life, she left behind a stunning, gutsy repertory of work that has long since floated free of, and outlived, Big Brother. This record, however, was laid down about six months before she (and they) achieved lasting blazing stardom at the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival.

Janis Joplin's second masterpiece (after Cheap Thrills), Pearl was designed as a showcase for her powerhouse vocals, stripping down the arrangements that had often previously cluttered her music or threatened to drown her out. Thanks also to a more consistent set of songs, the results are magnificent - given room to breathe, Joplin's trademark rasp conveys an aching, desperate passion on funked-up, bluesy rockers, ballads both dramatic and tender, and her signature song, the posthumous number one hit "Me and Bobby McGee." The unfinished "Buried Alive in the Blues" features no Joplin vocals - she was scheduled to record them on the day after she was found dead. Its incompleteness mirrors Joplin's career: Pearl's power leaves the listener to wonder what else Joplin could have accomplished, but few artists could ask for a better final statement.

Pearl was Janis Joplin's valedictory. It was also her masterpiece. Originally released posthumously in 1971, Pearl encapsulates Janis’s greatness. The first female superstar of the modern rock era, Janis was not only a powerhouse performer of rock and blues but also showed an innate affinity for soul, country-inflected folk and even the Great American Songbook.
This new, two-disc edition of Pearl includes nine previously unreleased selections. Disc One’s bonus tracks include the touching tribute "Pearl" composed by Full Tilt Boogie, while Disc Two chronicles Janis’s 1970 trans-Canada Festival Express tour, and is sequenced to recreate one of the spellbinding shows from that summer…

About half of this two-record set features Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company in 1968, performing songs like "Down on Me" and "Piece of My Heart." The rest, recorded in 1970, finds her with her backup group, Full Tilt Boogie, mostly performing songs from I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Joplin puts herself out on-stage, both in terms of singing until her voice is raw and describing her life to her audiences. Parts of this album are moving, parts are heartbreaking, and the rest is just great rock & roll.

Janis Joplin is one of the most revered and iconic of all rock & roll singers, a tragic and misunderstood figure who thrilled millions of listeners and blazed new creative trails before her death in 1970 at age 27…

Superb collection of Janis' best broadcasts. After splitting from Big Brother, Joplin formed new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues bands of the 60s. By early 69, Janis was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day. The Kozmic Blues Band performed on several American television shows with Joplin. On the Tom Jones show, they performed Little Girl Blue and Raise Your Hand, the latter with Jones singing a duet with Joplin. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show, they performed Try (Just a Little Bit Harder) as well as To Love Somebody.

Janis Joplin wouldn't be denied on Pearl. The powerhouse vocalist had kicked her addictions, teamed with a stupendous band, and partnered with a producer that knew how to best showcase her voice on record. She came to the sessions with an armload of astonishing songs, and a burst of creative energy that mirrored her rejuvenated emotional state and undeniable spirit. You can hear it on every note of the 1971 record. Ranked #135 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, Pearl sold more than four million copies and stands as the first female rock superstar's definitive studio work.

Back in 1968, when Big Brother & the Holding Company made their second album, the LP they planned to release was scuttled by the record company.