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Post by The Cincinnati Kid on Jan 7, 2019 20:38:54 GMT -5
Released in 1963, Little Deuce Coupe was quickly put together after Capitol released 409 and Shut Down on the compilation Shut Down Volume One. Eight new songs were recorded in addition to four that had been previously released. An alternate version of Be True To Your School reached #10 on the charts. Attachments:
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Post by kds on Jan 12, 2019 23:38:19 GMT -5
7 for the LDC album. Some great stuff, but the one third repeating tracks plus the inferior album version of BTTYS takes it down a little.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2019 8:55:58 GMT -5
The idea of bands recycling previously released tracks and compiling them on a theme album is not typically one that I get super excited about, but in the particular case of LDC, I don't mind it at all. I think it was a great idea and came together really well. The few old (but not that old, at the time) car songs in the same place with the new ones just feels right. Especially when they're all so good. Having said that, when I think of what the highlights are, I gravitate to (mostly) the first-time-out songs: Ballad of Ole Betsy, Car Crazy Cutie, Cherry Cherry Coupe, Spirit of America, Our Car Club, No Go Showboat and Custom Machine.
In what is probably an unpopular opinion, Our Car Club might be my favourite track off this album. Even though it had its first outing on Surfer Girl, I feel like it got washed out to sea there, and here on LDC it stands out. And with the other songs on this album being so good, I think that just means it found its proper home.
9/10
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Post by Jason (The Real Beach Boy) on Mar 28, 2019 11:23:55 GMT -5
8. Despite the rehashes, this has some of their best album tracks. It took a while for this one to grow on me, but now ranks among their best early albums.
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Post by jk on Feb 26, 2020 4:23:02 GMT -5
LDC contains two of my all-time favourite BB tracks, "Cherry, Cherry Coupe" and "Spirit Of America". Doo wop lives in 1963!  Ten.
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Post by Moon Dawg on Aug 22, 2020 10:47:08 GMT -5
LITTLE DEUCE COUPE is arguably rock's first theme or concept album, a wonderful celebration of all things automotive. We get the cocky ("LDC"), celebrations of pure speed ("409", "Shut Down", "Custom Machine"), mournful odes ("Ballad of Ole Betsy" and "A Young Man Is Gone") and the sense of just confidently cruising on a Friday night, secure in the world as you know it. ("Be True to Your School").
Oh yeah, the reissued cuts. The Stones got away with much the same on their classic FLOWERS, as do The Beach Boys on LITTLE DEUCE COUPE.
Classic Americana from The Beach Boys.
BTW- The 45rpm single version of "Be True to Your School" reached #6 on Billboard's HOT 100.
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Feb 17, 2021 18:21:05 GMT -5
The filler album.
Ballad of ole Betsy, Car crazy cutie, and custom machine are all great. Everything else is meh
and the reuse of old songs is inexcusable
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M.I.U. Fan
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Post by M.I.U. Fan on Feb 24, 2021 22:57:55 GMT -5
One of my absolute favorites. I reach for it all the time. I care not if some.songs were previously released, they make perfect sense right here. I give it a 10 without hesitation because it step on the gas and goes "whaaaaaaaaaaaa...."
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2021 23:53:45 GMT -5
I give it a 7. Certainly no masterpiece, but it's a fun little album.
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Post by E on Feb 25, 2021 4:11:26 GMT -5
I like it - like you say, a fun collection and no filler speech tracks. Despite it using some familiar tracks, there isn't a bad song on it, though I'm not too partial to Be True To Your School
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2021 20:21:10 GMT -5
Apparently I'm one of, like nine people who actually like the LP version of Be True to Your School. But we've discussed this numerous times and I'm sticking to it.
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Post by dauber on Jun 18, 2021 9:44:53 GMT -5
Now, this is actually a fresh review from me and not one copied from my five-year-old one on PSF.  (Admittedly because the Wayback Machine didn't archive it!)
I have good memories of this album. I first heard it in either 1989 or 1990 as a 15-year-old just becoming a fan. The cool thing was the public library, where I worked, had a pretty clean copy of the full version, so all songs were intact. (We had a cassette "budget" copy of Surfer Girl, so I filled in the missing tracks from our vinyl LDC. )
For an album that was rushed out to compete with the Shut Down compilation, this is actually a pretty solid album! It's not a concept album but a theme album -- and that car theme appears in all tracks but one, although one could argue that the brief mention of a car in "Be True to Your School" counts toward that theme.
But so many good tracks.
"Little Deuce Coupe" -- charming and short enough to be charming before it becomes corny
"The Ballad of Ole' Betsy" -- I admit it's really hard to get by that horrible spelling and use of the apostrophe, but such a nice little song. It especially has more meaning given how Mike Love recently theorized that it might be subconsciously about Audree. He adored her, which is why he includes it in..."Beach Boys"....concert set lists.
"Be True to Your School" -- the year I first heard the album, my school's football team went undefeated, so yeah...great track.
"Car Crazy Cutie" -- I never remember whether this predates "Pamela Jean," but if it does...wow, slick recycling of a previous song just in time for the album! Really fun song.
"409" -- fun little song. Didn't even notice until fairly recently that the guitar solo is done on an acoustic guitar.
"Shut Down" -- What's not to love? And I have to mention that my wife tells me that her late father explained to her, when she was a little kid, what all the terminology in the song means and why a Dodge would NEVER beat a Stingray!
"Spirit of America" -- who else but the Wilson-Christian songwriting duo make a beautiful ballad out of a subject that's so freakin' fast?
"Our Car Club" -- honestly, it took me a long time to like this. It used to bore me, but now I kinda dig it. Still want to know DEFINITIVELY: "a deuce coupe, a stingray, a [  ] and an XKE..."
"No-Go Showboat" -- Not a big fan of the music, but I love the lyrics. Even shut down by the ice cream truck!
"A Young Man Is Gone" -- Beach Boys multi-part vocal harmony all by itself. You canNOT go wrong with that.
"Custom Machine" -- meh, filler to me.
But overall....such a nice album to listen to. Giving it an 8. (Which, btw, is higher than I ranked The Beach Boys Today!. Deal with it.)
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Post by boogieboarder on Aug 12, 2021 8:32:59 GMT -5
1. If you consider that Surfer Girl, released just 3 weeks before this LP, had arguably three “filler” songs, this album has no filler (although it has four previously released on earlier albums). So, this album is very listenable all the way through. I guess you could call the repeated songs the filler of this album, great as they are. All the new songs are first rate Beach Boys.
2. The four previously released songs were chosen, of course, to “own” the songs Capitol put out on the various artists Shut Down LP, and prevent them from doing it again with the two newer car songs from the Surfer Girl album. And the result is a very pleasant themed album.
3. The repeat programming does make you have to pay twice for the same material, something Capitol also made US Beatles fans do with the Something New album, repeating five songs from the United Artists A Hard Days Night soundtrack LP in 1964, and then again in 1970 with the Hey Jude album. They’re still up to their old tricks with The Beach Boys Still Crusin’ album in 1989. The repeats on The Rolling Stones Flowers was unforgivable, as there were plenty of unreleased current songs they could have chosen instead at the time, for example “What to Do,” “Long Long While,” and “Who’s Driving Your Plane?”
4. I wouldn’t fault the band because the single version of “Be True to Your School” is superior to the album version. My guess is that the album was already delivered to Capitol and being prepared for release before the single version was recorded, but what do I know?
5. I have a problem, though. I’m wanting to rate this album a ten, but then Pet Sounds and Smile would each have to be eleven. It’s not fair. Little Deuce Coup, All Summer Long, and other early Beach Boys albums would all be tens if it wasn’t for Pet Sounds. Guess I’ll have to settle for nine.
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Post by E on Aug 12, 2021 12:29:24 GMT -5
One of my first BB albums - and I loved it! Never cared for Be True, however...
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Post by Shawn on Aug 12, 2021 16:16:20 GMT -5
Not knocking the content but releasing this only one month after the Surfer Girl was a mistake IMO. I would have preferred this album not be released and instead have its new tracks incorporated in to Shut Down Vol. 2 (while getting rid of that album’s instrumentals and Louie Louie and Cassius Love to make room). Shut Down Vol. 2 was issued only six months after this so a bit of market over-saturation.
All that said, it did come out (duh) and things turned out just fine so who am I to armchair quarterback.
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Post by drbeachboy (Dirk) on Aug 12, 2021 16:27:27 GMT -5
Not knocking the content but releasing this only one month after the Surfer Girl was a mistake IMO. I would have preferred this album not be released and instead have its new tracks incorporated in to Shut Down Vol. 2 (while getting rid of that album’s instrumentals and Louie Louie and Cassius Love to make room). Shut Down Vol. 2 was issued only six months after this so a bit of market over-saturation. All that said, it did come out (duh) and things turned out just fine so who am I to armchair quarterback. Considering how much product was cranked out by Capitol from 1963-1965, we were damn lucky to have as much quality material from Brian as we received. That is a schedule that I doubt most people could handle in this day and age. I never minded the few filler songs and spoken word material that had to be employed to complete the albums. I am always amazed at the amount of music written and recorded over the first 10 years as a band. |
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Shawn
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Post by Shawn on Aug 12, 2021 17:49:39 GMT -5
Not knocking the content but releasing this only one month after the Surfer Girl was a mistake IMO. I would have preferred this album not be released and instead have its new tracks incorporated in to Shut Down Vol. 2 (while getting rid of that album’s instrumentals and Louie Louie and Cassius Love to make room). Shut Down Vol. 2 was issued only six months after this so a bit of market over-saturation. All that said, it did come out (duh) and things turned out just fine so who am I to armchair quarterback. Considering how much product was cranked out by Capitol from 1963-1965, we were damn lucky to have as much quality material from Brian as we received. That is a schedule that I doubt most people could handle in this day and age. I never minded the few filler songs and spoken word material that had to be employed to complete the albums. I am always amazed at the amount of music written and recorded over the first 10 years as a band. Great points. But for fun imagine if this LP had come out in lieu of Little Duece Coup and Shut Down Vol. 2: Fun, Fun, Fun Don't Worry Baby In The Parking Lot The Warmth of the Sun This Car of Mine Keep An Eye On Summer Ballad of Ole' Betsy Be True To Your School Cherry Cherry Coupe Spirit of America A Young Man Is Gone Custom Machine Bonus is it might have given Brian just a touch of breathing room! |
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Post by boogieboarder on Aug 12, 2021 18:07:37 GMT -5
Considering how much product was cranked out by Capitol from 1963-1965, we were damn lucky to have as much quality material from Brian as we received. That is a schedule that I doubt most people could handle in this day and age. I never minded the few filler songs and spoken word material that had to be employed to complete the albums. I am always amazed at the amount of music written and recorded over the first 10 years as a band. Great points. But for fun imagine if this LP had come out in lieu of Little Duece Coup and Shut Down Vol. 2: Fun, Fun, Fun Don't Worry Baby In The Parking Lot The Warmth of the Sun This Car of Mine Keep An Eye On Summer Ballad of Ole' Betsy Be True To Your School Cherry Cherry Coupe Spirit of America A Young Man Is Gone Custom Machine Bonus is it might have given Brian just a touch of breathing room! Sure, but then we wouldn't get some of my favorite songs: "Pom Pom Play Girl" "Car Crazy Cutie" "No Go Showboat" |
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Shawn
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Post by Shawn on Aug 12, 2021 22:31:47 GMT -5
Great points. But for fun imagine if this LP had come out in lieu of Little Duece Coup and Shut Down Vol. 2: Fun, Fun, Fun Don't Worry Baby In The Parking Lot The Warmth of the Sun This Car of Mine Keep An Eye On Summer Ballad of Ole' Betsy Be True To Your School Cherry Cherry Coupe Spirit of America A Young Man Is Gone Custom Machine Bonus is it might have given Brian just a touch of breathing room! Sure, but then we wouldn't get some of my favorite songs: "Pom Pom Play Girl" "Car Crazy Cutie" "No Go Showboat" They could be part of the Be True To Your School EP  |
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Post by dauber on May 17, 2022 13:14:09 GMT -5
3. The repeat programming does make you have to pay twice for the same material, something Capitol also made US Beatles fans do with the Something New album, repeating five songs from the United Artists A Hard Days Night soundtrack LP in 1964, and then again in 1970 with the Hey Jude album. They’re still up to their old tricks with The Beach Boys Still Crusin’ album in 1989. The repeats on The Rolling Stones Flowers was unforgivable, as there were plenty of unreleased current songs they could have chosen instead at the time, for example “What to Do,” “Long Long While,” and “Who’s Driving Your Plane?”
Capitol didn't make US Beatles fans buy stuff twice, really. Given that the albums came out within two weeks of each other, they were both trying to be the first to get their albums out.
In Capitol's mind, they and no one else were the band's only US label, so they pretended that Vee-Jay and United Artists did not exist. And really, the only reason UA agreed to do the movie was so that they could have dibs on the soundtrack album. The Capitol album had the better deal, though: more tunes, and true stereo mixes. (The Beatles' stuff on the UA album was in fake stereo; the instrumentals -- only one of which was actually used in the movie, the Brubeckian version of the title track -- were in true stereo.) And if you got the mono version of Something New, you got some unique mono mixes that you couldn't get anywhere else, to this day.
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Post by boogieboarder on May 17, 2022 19:33:04 GMT -5
3. The repeat programming does make you have to pay twice for the same material, something Capitol also made US Beatles fans do with the Something New album, repeating five songs from the United Artists A Hard Days Night soundtrack LP in 1964, and then again in 1970 with the Hey Jude album. They’re still up to their old tricks with The Beach Boys Still Crusin’ album in 1989. The repeats on The Rolling Stones Flowers was unforgivable, as there were plenty of unreleased current songs they could have chosen instead at the time, for example “What to Do,” “Long Long While,” and “Who’s Driving Your Plane?”
Capitol didn't make US Beatles fans buy stuff twice, really. Given that the albums came out within two weeks of each other, they were both trying to be the first to get their albums out.
In Capitol's mind, they and no one else were the band's only US label, so they pretended that Vee-Jay and United Artists did not exist. And really, the only reason UA agreed to do the movie was so that they could have dibs on the soundtrack album. The Capitol album had the better deal, though: more tunes, and true stereo mixes. (The Beatles' stuff on the UA album was in fake stereo; the instrumentals -- only one of which was actually used in the movie, the Brubeckian version of the title track -- were in true stereo.) And if you got the mono version of Something New, you got some unique mono mixes that you couldn't get anywhere else, to this day.
But each album had both duplicate and unique tracks, so if you bought Something New, you didn’t get “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and “I Should Have Known Better,” and if you bought A Hard Days Night LP, you didn’t get “Any Time At All,”When I Get Home,” “Slow Down,” and “Matchbox,” so Capitol did make fans who wanted all the songs to buy six songs twice - which is a really large number of repeats for a thirteen year old kid with little spending money. And Capitol pretending that non-Capitol albums didn’t exist fooled us about as much as our imaginary friends fooled our parents. |
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Post by E on May 18, 2022 2:12:24 GMT -5
One of my first BB albums - and I loved it! Never cared for Be True, however... Maybe if I'd had the other albums at the time I wouldn't have liked this so much when I bought it, but I think I only had Pet Sounds, Wild Honey, 20/20 (the double album with the hazy-looking bikini girl on the cover*) and Surfin' USA at the time (and maybe Surf's Up), plus 20 Golden Greats, so the fact songs were repeated on this didn't bother me. *  |
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Post by jk on May 18, 2022 4:08:39 GMT -5
But each album had both duplicate and unique tracks, so if you bought Something New, you didn’t get “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and “I Should Have Known Better,” and if you bought A Hard Days Night LP, you didn’t get “Any Time At All,”When I Get Home,” “Slow Down,” and “Matchbox,” so Capitol did make fans who wanted all the songs to buy six songs twice - which is a really large number of repeats for a thirteen year old kid with little spending money. And Capitol pretending that non-Capitol albums didn’t exist fooled us about as much as our imaginary friends fooled our parents. Ye gods, what a mess! We in the UK were so lucky to get the original versions of everything Beatlish.  |
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Post by Awesoman on May 18, 2022 7:07:19 GMT -5
It has its place in the group's history and very well could be one of the first "concept albums" put out by a pop group, but it's not an album I have all that much interest in listening to. Aside from the obvious hits on here the underrated highlight for me is "Ballad Of Ole' Betsy". And would you believe that the remake Mike Love did of this song for that Nascar album he did in the late 90's was a highlight of that album as well?
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Post by radiokingdom on Mar 28, 2023 22:27:56 GMT -5
The idea of bands recycling previously released tracks and compiling them on a theme album is not typically one that I get super excited about, but in the particular case of LDC, I don't mind it at all. I think it was a great idea and came together really well. The few old (but not that old, at the time) car songs in the same place with the new ones just feels right. Especially when they're all so good. Having said that, when I think of what the highlights are, I gravitate to (mostly) the first-time-out songs: Ballad of Ole Betsy, Car Crazy Cutie, Cherry Cherry Coupe, Spirit of America, Our Car Club, No Go Showboat and Custom Machine. In what is probably an unpopular opinion, Our Car Club might be my favourite track off this album. Even though it had its first outing on Surfer Girl, I feel like it got washed out to sea there, and here on LDC it stands out. And with the other songs on this album being so good, I think that just means it found its proper home. 9/10 I also have long enjoyed "Our Car Club." You rarely hear it mentioned. Since I have no interest in or knowledge of automobiles, I'm surprised at how much I like LDC (the album). You can almost hear that they're actually at least kind of into cars. The vocals sound sort of sincere. I dig it. |
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(Admittedly because the Wayback Machine didn't archive it!)
