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 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 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".
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