Little Deuce Coupe / All Summer Long [Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

The Beach Boys | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 13, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B00005A1MX
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #25,903 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #36 in Music > Rock > Oldies & Retro > Surf Rock

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Released just one month after the Surfer Girl album, Little Deuce Coupe was, incredibly, the band's fourth album in less than a year. Brian Wilson and the band responded by turning in arguably their most consistent effort to date--and a concept album, to boot. Deuce Coupe expanded the band's subject matter to encompass 1963 America's burgeoning love affair with hot rods, surrounding previously released cuts such as the title track, "409," and others with strong new material (much of it cowritten by Wilson and a DJ, Roger Christian). A highpoint: the a cappella James Dean tribute "A Young Man Is Gone" (a reworking of Bobby Troup's beautiful "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring"), a prime example of Wilson's arranging genius and the band's vocal prowess. All Summer Long was notable not only for racheting up the band's standards and essentially bidding farewell to the surf songs that inspired both their name and reputation, but also for going toe-to-toe with one of rock's most explosive phenomena--Beatlemania--and coming away victorious, with the single "I Get Around" soaring to No. 1 in the spring of 1964. Essentially another loose concept record (revolving around the innocent hedonistic pursuits of an idyllic SoCal summer) that takes its cue from the effervescent title track, it also documents Brian's restless creativity pushing the band toward its performing peak. Bonus takes include the superior single take of band staple "Be True to Your School," alternate takes of "Little Honda" and "Don't Back Down," and the slightly salacious outtake "All Dressed Up for School." Both albums have also been sonically burnished via 24-bit digital remastering. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE BEACH BOYS OF SUMMER, April 29, 2005

By 

Balcony Bunny (Where am I? . . . I'm Right Here!) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Little Deuce Coupe / All Summer Long (Audio CD)

Beach Boys music wasn't made for the purpose of analysis by 21st century music critics. It was made to dance to, to sing along with, to serve as the soundtrack for your backyard "beach party". It was made for 1963-64.

In 1963-64 these Beach Boys cuts were by far the finest pop music America had to offer. Attempting to critique the merits of these teenage odes to Southern California culture as one would a 2005 CD is pointless. Brian Wilson didn't write these tunes for the critics, and The Beach Boys weren't singing for them.

They were singing for other kids about the things that really mattered in 1963-64: Hotrods, Surfing, School, Drive-ins...and Girls on the Beach!

The fact that radio is still playing these songs 40 years later is proof of their timelessness. Truth is - you can't have summer without them. These songs ARE summer.

You don't need to know all the minutia of which "take" is best, which songs to skip over, and which ones are true art. Just play them all. You don't need a reason to love The Beach Boys.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 'LDC' is fun, but 'All Summer Long' is astonishing., July 11, 2001

By 

darragh o'donoghue - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Deuce Coupe / All Summer Long (Audio CD)

For centuries alchemists have fruitlessly sought the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, when what they should have done is listen to early Beach Boys' albums. The two collected on this CD, 'Little Deuce Coupe' and 'All Summer Long', are surely the purest, most invigorating distillation of testosterone there is, life-affirming hymns to cars, girls, cars, beaches, cars, surfing, cars, and, er, school. I've never really been interested in any of these things, but I recognise the passion and the fantasy, and feel years younger listening to them.

Though essentially innocent, there is a choppy, ear-slicing guitar racket in most of these songs, presumably in imitation of powerful engines, that have the violent energy of punk and later surf-inspired noiseniks.

there is something sweet about five boys singing love songs to automobiles, but something slightly perverse too, especially in 'Ballad of Ol' Betsy', where a tribute to a knackered car sounds like an elegy to an aging, sexually experienced woman, reminding me of Flann O'Brien's 'The Third Policeman' (about a bicycle), edging on to the world of Ballard and Cronenberg.

The emphasis is on short sharp spurts of spirited exuberance, but there are grace notes: the warm lush tingle of 'Hushabye', the kind of enveloping lullaby that makes you want to wrap up in it all night; the late-50s pastiche ballad 'We'll Run Away'; the sun-lazy rapture of 'Girls on the beach'; the gloriously seedy 'All dressed up for school'; the mysterious 'Wendy', complete with eerie organ break; the hushed a capella 'A young man is gone', apparently a tribute to James Dean, poised between tragedy and comedy.

Best of all, though, is one of pop's beacons: 'I Get Around', its miraculous circular vocals, propulsive movement, weird verse breaks and general exhiliration embodying youthful masculinity in all its zest, good faith, and, well, strangeness.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A car concept album & a small masterpiece of teenage angst on 1 CD!, January 29, 2007

By 

K. Lewis "thrasher" (OZ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Little Deuce Coupe / All Summer Long (Audio CD)

Little Duece Coupe is the ultimate car concept record and plays great even though a few tracks are a few years old and already released.
All Summer Long is highly recommended and Brian's first peak. These 7 songs listed here are ESSENTIAL listening.

Hushabye
Little Honda
We'll Run Away
Wendy
Girls On The Beach
Don't Back Down
All Dressed Up For School