The Smiley Smile Message Board

Discuss, review and rate Little Deuce Coupe, released October 1963.

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With the exception of the title track and a couple of others, this doesn't have much I like. Inessential or worse, in my estimation, and if not for the fact that it came on the twofer with the great All Summer Long, I likely would have sold my copy.

The weakest of the early albums, not much to like here.

A HELL of a lot to like here. The songs and arrangements are stunning. Only gets docked a point for the repeats. 4.

I gave it a three for Custom Machine.

What the hell?  This is their strongest pre-All Summer Long album (USA and this are a close run thing)... The reused tracks already 'sound' old, Brian was progressing so much...  "No Go Showboat" is one of those underated brilliant tunes Brian was churning out...  Car Crazy Cutie, Custom Machine, all strong new material.

Exactly, Matinee.

A great album. This album and All Summer Long were my first twofer. After hearing these, I wanted to own everything. Sounds better on CD then on vinyl for sure.

Do you have the mono LP?

Yes I do but to me it's very muddy. Especially Spirit of America.

4. Betsy's amazing.

Awesome early concept album. There is a lot to enjoy here. I much prefer the version of "Be True To Your School" on this album, compared with the single version.

Alright Matinee, what the hell?  After reading you say that the 90's album "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" had Brian's best singing OF HIS CAREER, BEFORE OR SINCE, I couldn't let this statement go.  "Little Duece Coupe" is the strongest pre-"All Summer Long" album??  It's better then "Shut Down Vol. 2"?? 

"Shut Down Vol. 2" came out 4 months before "All Summer Long" and contains "Fun Fun Fun," "Don't Worry Baby," "Warmth of the Sun," "This Car of Mine," and "Keep an Eye on Summer."  That kicks "Little Duece Coupes" ass.  Thanks. 

LDC is FAR, FAR stronger of an album than SDII.

Let's not get greedy now, Shut Down Vol. II has two of the band's weakest songs ever on there (Denny's Drums, Shut Down Part II).

And that's not counting Louie Louie and Cassius Love.

You know, I might revise my rating of Little Deuce Coupe from a 2 to a 3 and give Shut Down Vol. II the 2.

How about 5 for LDC and 4 for SD. That's what they deserve.

I'm quite sure I said they're the best vocals of his 'solo' career (excluding the '66 Caroline No, if you want to be a smartass).  Until I came here and read everyone slagging them off about being out of tune and the like, I didn't notice... all I heard was highly emotive vocals which I haven't heard on any other legitimate BW solo release.  Listen to them without being so damn critical... His version of "Meant For You" pisses all over the Friends version for example.

Onto LDC vs SD... Yes, SD has higher peaks, but much, much lower troughs... My god, with the amount of crap on the SD album you'd think Brian scooped it out of an Elephant enclosure with a shovel.  LDC is all solid (even the 'oldies')...

I mean, I recently found out that even Brian wanted to scrap SD and start from scratch... he wasn't allowed though... I wish he was.

Thankyou.

No way. That was meant for Mike to sing.
But Brian's is nice too.

Bah!  'm lookin' for support ere Ian :)

D'you like the way it finishes rather than an awkward fade out?

... What thread is this anyway?  LDC... Great album.

I love the quick fade on the original, ends just when you expect it to kick in. Purely Brian.
Yes, LDC rules. First great BB album. If it didn't have the repeats, it's be perfect.

What about Surfer Girl?  I thought that was a pretty good album.

Yep, it's prety darn good, and so is USA. I love USA more, personally.
But LDC is conceptually perfect, with no weak cuts. Therefore, it must come above the first 3 and it's successor artistically.

I can buy that, it was just the phrase "first great BB album" I was objecting to.

You think Surfer Girl is great?

As great as SDII for sure, and not that far off from LDC.  It has three bona fide classics, several cool album cuts (including a killer Denny cut), and a few nice instrumentals (I love Boogie Woodie).  Yeah, I think it is pretty great.

Cool. It is pretty damn excellent, now that I think about it.

My favorite song is on this album.  :)

Heh, you crazy little cutie you... ;)

...Ballad of Ole' Betsy, right? :)

great album, I like cherry cherry coupe

3 out of 5. Some great tracks i love (No-Go Showboat - what a melody! - and Custom Machine) and some average tracks i don't (Spirit of America, Be True To your School). Hate the cover as well...

3/5, deductions because of the repeat tracks. Nothing really special here, there's no song that makes me think "Wow, that's amazing"--and there usually is at least one on most BB's albums before 1973. Nevertheless, I like it okay, though for me it's more enjoyable as a study of Brian's developing production talents(compare the production of Cherry Cherry Coupe with the nearly identical Land Ahoj--much beefier and more powerful) Also the fact that it's all about cars makes me laugh.

Three. Lot's of rehashed songs but a very example of a concept album:

From best to worst:
Little Deuce Coupe
Spirit of America
Shut Down
Cherry Cherry Coupe
A Young Man is Gone
Custom Machine
Ballad of Ole' Betsy
409
Our Car Club
Be True to Your School (Single version is much better imo)
No-Go Showboat
Car Crazy Cutie

Ugh.  Car songs.  2 stars.

Track picks:  Little Deuce Coupe (+)

I can't believe you wrote Little Deuce Coupe off as car songs and then said your favorite was the title track. Songs like Ballad of Ole Betsy, Spirit of America, Young Man is Gone, et cetera are car songs in name only. If you want to hear a "car song" listen to the Rip Chords or the Vettes or some other Bruce/Terry-produced ripoff band that tries to get all their songs to sound like Little Deuce Coupe and 409. But you'll be hard pressed to find something like Car Crazy Cutie.

And the album version of Be True to Your School? Come on, it's great! No annoying cheerleaders.

I guess I never rated this yet, but I'll give it a 4.4, rounded down to 4.

Yeah but I only gave it one "+" out of a possible three :P

Great point. They are nearly ALL just "car songs" in name only. They are love songs to things,  hymns to a materialist God, patriotic anthems to objects and absurdities. Cherry Cherry Coupe immortalizes the car more than Help Me Rhonda immortalizes Rhonda. Listening to the  album is  like looking at Michelangelo drawings of  of corvettes and Model T's..
 

I was listening to this one today, and I have to give further props to Cherry Cherry Coupe. What a majestic song it is, from the bubbling guitars and put-put-put of the drums, it sounds like an engine idling, and what a melody and how well that melody is presented! One of their most underrated songs from 1963.

Spirit of America, it's almost sounds like a hymn; Betsy, surely the funniest of all the early Beach Boys tracks.

Let's not get greedy now, Shut Down Vol. II has two of the band's weakest songs ever on there (Denny's Drums, Shut Down Part II).

Say wha?

I love both of those songs.

Like Shut down Part II but can't stand Denny's Drums. That alone brings Shut Down a full notch for me.

I know, I was just replying to the other dude, dude.

Oh. Well, that's what happens when it's the first post on a new page... I didn't think there was any context to it. Sorry!

No problemo!

A 3 from me. Kind of weird having 4 tracks from previous albums (rounds down from a 4 to a 3 for me) on this one but apparently Capitol readied the album and the Boys had to crank out a lot of songs in a short time.

5/5 LDC
3/4 Ballad of Ol' Betsy
3/5 Be True to Your School
3/5 Car Crazy Cutie
4/5 Cherry, Cherry Coupe
4/5 409
5/5 Shut Down
3/5 Spirit of America
3.5/5 Our Car Club
3.5/5 No Go Showboat
4/5 A Young Man is Gone
3/5 Custom Machine

Yep, from memory it was only like 27 days between albums or something crazy like that

The relatively simplicity of these songs (compared to what Brian would be doing a few years later) seemed to really let Brian go all out with the harmonies. Never before or again did the Beach Boys harmonize so freely and with this kind of reckless abandon for a whole album, and they still had that pure, youthful angelic tone. Basically, they still sound like a bunch of 18 year olds harmonizing in Brian's garage. It doesn't seem self-conscious. I think "No-Go Showboat" is magic, pure magic, tell me, who else could've come up with that?  But what's strange is that I get that feeling that a song like "No-Go Showboat" could've have only come from somebody who had a deep well of pain and suffering inside. Not that the song has the feeling of being pained, but that it has the kind of ecstatic joy that you can only get from overcoming a deep sense of pain and grief. It is the sound of a man defeating his pain and grief, is what I mean. But I might be just reading into this too much. But still, there's just something in the air.

"No-Go Showboat", "Custom Machine", "Our Car Club", and "Cherry Cherry Coupe" really stand out to me as the most exceptional of the new songs. Still, all of the new songs have something to recommend about them. How about the end of "Ballad of Ole' Betsy"? That's Brian doing his best to channel The Four Freshman.

I really like Little Deuce Coupe, people get down on it for having repeat songs, and I guess I can understand that if I bought it when it came out expecting new Beach Boys product, but looking at it now it is a great listen.  The Little Deuce Coupe/All Summer Long two-fer is a totally enjoyable listening experience, great songs to sing along to during a long drive.

.

It is a fun album to sing along with

A step backwards after Surfer Girl unsurprisingly considering how quickly the band were forced to release this. Lyrically the album doesn't hold up too well but Custom Machine and No Go Showboat are both nice up-tempo numbers and the harmonies on Ballad of Ole' Betsy are exquisite.

2 1/2 out of 5.

Little Deuce Coupe may pale in comparison to other albums from this period, but considering it was released three weeks after Surfer Girl i think it's 'failures' can easily be forgiven, no? Judge it by the new songs only and you've got yourself a pretty decent (mini-)album. Old Betsy and Spirtit of America are beautifully sung, particuarly the latter which features a tremendous early Brian lead. Cherry Cherry Coupe is simplistic but very catchy, while No-Go Showboat and Custom Machine are genuinely great songs - Brian's songwriting and production skills are all very apparent on these two songs! They're both so intricate and tightly arranged, far more elaborate than they perhaps appear on the surface.

It's a comfortable 3 from me.

Finally sat down and listened all the way through several times. Luther's comments sum up my thoughts, although I would never sell a BB cd!! All summer long blows this out of the water.

This album is so much better than All Summer Long.

imo this album is an utter throwaway, made in 1 month to piss Capitol off. it's pure filler.

It's not THAT bad. The mono mix helps a lot, Britzereo ruins so much of the early catalogue. In The Parking Lot, Betsy, Custom Machine....

I like it much better than the first two albums. I don't think it's a throwaway at all.

I love almost every song on this album (I like them all) so I gave it a 5  ;D :smokin

the album perhaps deserved to be docked for the five repeats, but 6 of the 7 other songs I think are GREAT. Don't get the 'utter throwaway' judgment. Yeah, it would have made a better 8 song EP, perhaps....but those songs are great.

The new songs for this album are great. However, while the repeats are good, it's no fun hearing the same songs two albums in a row. Still a pretty strong album from the group. This is where they began to cut back on the instrumentals (A plus, indeed).

You got to respect this album for being one of the first concept albums ever.

That being said, I don't care for this album at all. It's all car songs, and the whole album is dated. The songs are mediocre at best.

Still, it is one of the first concept albums...
But then again, it was rush-recorded and released straight after Surfer Girl. Not a wise move.

2/5.

This album is worth a 4 if only for the unexpectedly beautiful harmonies in Custom Machine.

I really love the "Little Deuce Coupe" album, and give it a strong 4/5. It's a pure car-themed album with some really solid songs. My favourites on the album, other than the hit singles are "Custom Machine", "No-Go Showboat" and "Cherry, Cherry Coupe".

:) Mark

What would you replace the repeat tracks (LTD, 409 and Shut Down) with on this record?

Fair enough. How about Shut Down, Our Car Club and/or 409, then?

Not sure. Were there any other tracks available at the time or songs Brian wrote for other artists that were considered for the Beach Boys? "Surf City" comes to mind, but I'm not sure if Brian ever intended that for the Boys.

2/5.

Little Deuce Coupe (song and the album) sucks. But Car Crazy Cutie is the most underrated BB song from pre-Today period.

Id give it 3/5 because it has to many repeats .. Beyond that I think the new songs are good to very good.. Cover art does nothing for me..Lots of hot rod lp"s back then + they all looked like this one.. This Lp is a holding pattern .. When this was released single version BTTYS + LSN came out Fall // Winter 63

  Judged on its own terms, LITTLE DEUCE COUPE is a fine record and also rock's first concept album. The album covers the full emotional range of automotive life, from cocky celebrations to mournful odes. Yes, there are reissued cuts but the Stones pulled a near classic when they did the same with FLOWERS and Brian makes it happen on LITTLE DEUCE COUPE. This is classic Americana. Those who bash this record are being...Beach Boys snobs!

 ****

But Flowers is actually a compilation, while LDC is a official studio album.
When compared to most of the 60's album, this album falls far short.

 Didn't FLOWERS contain several cuts that were unique to that album? I find it more enjoyable than BETWEEN THE BUTTONS. Look it this way: Some kid in the 60's could have owned LITTLE DEUCE COUPE or FLOWERS as his/her only Beach Boys or Stones LP and been none the poorer for the reissued cuts. Once knew a guy who claimed FLOWERS rated second to only to EXILE among Stones platters. Of course, he was high at the time, but to each his own. ;D

I gave this a 3, but it's a high three for the overall quality.  However, since 1/3 of the album are songs that appeared on the previous three albums, I had to take it down a point. 

I love The Ballad of Ole Betsy.  It was a treat to hear that on the C50 Tour.  I prefer the single version of Be True to Your School, but it's a different take. 

There's also a great group vocal is A Young Man is Gone, which is basically Their Hearts Were Full of Spring with different lyrics. 

The arrangements are good, but thematically, it's a little repetitive.  A step back in quality from Surfer Girl IMO. 

Of the early Surf n' Turf albums, I always thought of Surfer Girl as their best.  But lately I feel like Little Deuce Coupe is better in many regards.  It's the first album where I feel like Brian Wilson's production becomes another member of the band, so-to-speak.  Just like Surfer Girl, the whole album is good, but the production is a show-stopper.  It feels tighter.  Shinier.  Bigger, yes, but not bloated.

I think the production is actually a sweet spot for the band and it perfectly fits the car metaphors.  Fast, tight, lean and mean.  Not too crowded, and no longer surf-band garage-y.  There's something going on here with this Brian Wilson guy that probably raised a few eyebrows by now.  He knows what he's doin'.  It ain't a fluke.

Surfer Girl was, if not a transition from their first two loose, early surf band albums, it was definitely an awakening.  A culmination of their early work.  But it's on Little Deuce Coupe where he goes beyond.  It's now all polished up and perfected -- even though a few tracks date from those earlier efforts, yes --but because of that, it's the new stuff -- the "filler" -- that Brian's focusing on.  It's the secret to this album's appeal.  The filler, is no longer throw-away.  It fills in the gaps perfectly -- like the mortar between the bricks.  It holds it all together.

After this, on Shut Down Volume II, the production starts to feel extremely dense (and a little scary at times!).  You can tell there was a lot of work and effort on their construction -- a lot of experimentation.  But on Deuce Coupe it doesn't sound like he's searching at all -- it sounds solid, focused and sure of itself -- like Brian knew exactly what he wanted.  It just sounds all too easy.  And as a result, I seem to reach for Deuce Coupe more than any of their early fun-in-the-sun albums.  This is the "good old days."  Perfect Beach Boys.

I feel like he could have made a dozen albums like this.  Without burning himself out.  But he wasn't settling or resting.  On the next album, he starts building the layered sonic palette he became famous for -- a dense wall of sound, behind a barrage of vocals. I always felt those massive details must have been lost on most AM radio fans.  Plus, it sounds like a lot of work -- which could have worn him out.  It's probably the reason we have the MAJOR gaps between the filler and the killer material on the next few albums.  He put too much pressure on himself.

Nevertheless... on Little Deuce Coupe, we get to enjoy the simple days, one last time.  5 stars.

To me, the Beach Boys' car songs are more dated and shallow than anything else they did (except, I guess, their surf songs).  So I really don't like 11 of the 12 songs on this album.

But No-Go Showboat is absolute magic.  Nothing else sounds like it, and I'm not sure how anything else could.  You almost have to wonder if No-Go Showboat was the real product of Brian's first acid trip.

Wow. I'm so in love with your comment.

I also think that the album must be considered as a work on its own, not minding that some of its songs were on previous albums. I gave it 4/5, because I love the energy in it. The guys really seem in control and focused. You know what, maybe if I could vote again I'd give it a five - It's one of the albums that I listen to the most.

Favorite songs: Be True To Your School, Car Crazy Cutie, Cherry, Cherry Coupe and Our Car Club

No Go Showboat is a cool tune with impressive chord changes, as is Custom Machine. Brian took the chords and melodies into areas other people hadn't even thought of yet. Love the overall sound of this album; I rate it higher than Surfer Girl.

:)

I give it 5 stars despite a single flaw…Be True To Your School, which sounds like a throwaway in Brian’s stream of composition that gained traction nevertheless. The song’s musical ideas are near hackneyed, near Billy Joel. Adding insult, Mike arrives with his too-quick phrasing and the adverb “now.” Elsewhere on the album, Mike’s singing is better. Otherwise…

Give me Roger Christian. This is the Brian/Roger album. Seemingly effortless song craft…from Brian’s thoughts, Roger’s legitimate argot as added trope, to each 2.5 minute soundscape that keeps it simple and adds Beach Boy early career-making harmonies.  Lots of room for strong metaphor and philosophy in the whole shebang. My favorite is Cherry Cherry Coupe, with the static base-added melody under the harmony in the chorus end.  Think of the subconscious supporting the overt eros.

Here’s a great short album…  “The Beach Boys Sing the Brian Wilson-Roger Christian Songbook”…

Car Crazy Cutie
Little Deuce Coupe
Cherry Cherry Coupe
Don’t Worry Baby
In The Parking Lot
No-Go Showboat
Spirit of America
Shut Down
Ballad of Ol’ Betsy

Odd that I haven't commented yet, although I seem to have voted.

All good songs here, even----sorry, DC----"BTTYS", which has its own charms distinct from those of the 45.

LDC vies with Holland for a place in my BB top ten albums, the one setback being the fact that it shares a song with SUSA, a top ten certainty. Whatever, a great little album and I hope I gave it five.

Good to see Mr Cunningham back on board. His erudition is sorely missed.

JK: Good to hear from you.  Realized l had a message from FF.  Hope you didn't mind too much
my negativity (about BTTYS). I feel a little negativity is good for one's soul. Plus I earn it by estimating
that Hey Little Tomboy is.......fantastic. 

Preface: I only assign a rating of one star to songs that are literally duplicates.

Little Deuce Coupe (Mono, 2015 AP release)

Side 1:

1. Little Deuce Coupe - *

2. Ballad of Ole' Betsy - ****
Nice second song on the album. Great lead and backing vocals.

3. Be True To Your School - *****
Classic song. The single version has a bit more punch but a great number regardless.

4. Car Crazy Cutie - ****
This one is pretty fun, and solid vocal performances.

5. Cherry, Cherry Coupe - ****
One of the best on the album. Nice feel to it and good vocals.

6. 409 - *

Side 2:

7. Shut Down - *

8. Spirit of America - *****
This song has grown on me. Always thought it was pretty good, but something about the lead gives me chills.

9. Our Car Club - *

10. No-Go Showboat - ****
I like Brian a lot on this one. Solid all-around

11. A Young Man Is Gone - ****
I prefer the original lyrics from "Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring" but this is great either way.

12. Custom Machine - ****
Not memorable but not one I skip. I had this and No-Go Showboat as three stars originally but bumped them up.

Overall Rating: ***
I have thought of this as a weak album but it's really not one to be honest. The main issue here is the retreads. No spoken words or instrumentals to bring it down otherwise. Every new song is fantastic.