Cheap at Half the Price is a 1983 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith. It was Frith's fifth solo album, and was originally released in the United States on LP record on the Residents' Ralph record label. It was the third of three solo albums Frith made for the label.
Cheap at Half the Price was recorded by Frith at his home in New York City on a 4-track machine. He played all the instruments himself, with the exception of bass guitar on two tracks, and drums, for which he used tapes and samples previously recorded by other drummers. The record differed from Frith's previous experimental albums in that it consisted largely of pop-like songs, and he sang for the first time.
The LP's release in 1983 caused a stir in progressive circles because of its "apparent simplicity" and its departure from the experimental music Frith had become known for. But a remastered version of the album released on CD in 2004 was better received by critics, who admitted that they had overlooked what Frith had been doing at the time.
Background and recording
Cheap at Half the Price was the third in a series of three solo albums Frith made for the Residents' record label, Ralph Records, the first being Gravity (1980), an avant-garde "dance" record that drew on rhythm and dance from folk music across the world, and the second being Speechless (1981), a mixture of folk music, free improvisation, avant-rock and noise. He had recorded with the Residents in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and appeared on several of their albums. Both Gravity and Speechless were well received by critics.
Frith recorded Cheap at Half the Price at his home in New York City on a 4-track machine. Unlike his two previous albums for Ralph Records, where he used backing bands, on this album Frith played all the instruments himself, with the exception of bass guitar on two tracks, and drums. Bill Laswell from Frith's band Massacre played bass on "Same Old Me", and Tina Curran played bass on "Too Much, Too Little". For the drumming Frith used samples that had been previously recorded of drummers he had worked with, namely Frank Wuyts of Aksak Maboul, Fred Maher from Massacre, Paul Sears of the Muffins, and Hans Bruniusson from Samla Mammas Manna.
Composition
Cheap at Half the Price differed from Frith's previous experimental albums in that it featured a collection of short songs and instrumentals in a "tongue-in-cheek pop vein". He also played a "cheap" Casio-101 on all the tracks and sang for the first time. AllMusic described Frith's singing on the album as "strange[ly] high-pitched", and the songs as "pop-like ditties" with a "simple and repetitive" structure. Leonardo Digital Reviews said most of the tracks had a "happy-go-lucky" feel to them.
The lyrics on Cheap at Half the Price are politically oriented, set during US President Ronald Reagan's first term of office, with socialist commentaries on, amongst other things, dogs and insects. Despite Frith's apparent departure from his previous progressive albums, some of the tracks on this album have ties to his earlier work. "Some Clouds Do" has a similar "driving rhythm" to Paul Sears' drumming on "What a Dilemma" on Gravity. "Absent Friends", a traditional Swedish melody arranged by Frith, has the same "fun and dance" feel that occurs at the end of "Don't Cry for Me", also on Gravity. "Absent Friends" is also the only track on Cheap at Half the Price that departs from the album's "pop vein".
In contrast to the high-pitched singing on most of the songs, "Same Old Me", one of the few "dark" tracks on the album, is a "gloomily introspective" song featuring some "rough lyrics" that have been slowed to a drawl over "angry riffing" and "relentless bass and percussion". Leonardo Digital Reviews said that this and many of the other songs on the album had a complex structure beneath the apparent "carefree and beaming surface".
Reception and influence
Followers of Fred Frith's music generally had trouble coming to terms with Cheap at Half the Price. To them Frith was "progressive, genre-bending music's last great hope", and on this album he appeared to have abandoned this role. When the album was released on LP in 1983, Recommended Records, founded and run by Chris Cutler (Frith's band-mate from Henry Cow), elected not to stock it because Cutler felt it was not "terribly good". Trouser Press said that the quality of the record suffered from the lo-fi experiment of recording "at home on a 4-track".