Little Deuce Coupe review

The fourth album by The Beach Boys. This car themed album contains 3 songs from previous albums and was released only a month after their last album. That doesn't give me a great feeling about this album.

Tracks:

1. Little Deuce Coupe: 7/10 this one appeared on their previous album. It's fairly forgettable, but it has plenty of charm to spare.

2. Ballad of Ole' Betsy: 7/10 at first it seems like a love song, then you realize it's actually about a car. It's confusing, but very nice to listen to and shows off some great harmonizing.

3. Be True to Your School: 7/10 this leans heavily on its wonderful tune to distract listeners from its lack of substance.

4. Crazy Car Cutie: 7/10 in some ways ditto, but this one's too catchy to dismiss.

5. Cherry, Cherry Coupe: 6/10 overly sugary but fun.

6. 409: 5/10 out of all the songs they used from previous albums, they had to use this bland track from their actually kind of weak first album!

7. Shut Down: 6/10 a perfectly nice car song previously seen on another album. It's not that striking but I like it. It's a high 6.

8. Spirit of America: 5/10 it's got lovely harmonies and stuff, but we've heard The Beach Boys' great vocals so many times now that they can no longer carry a weak song. Enough about cars now!

9. Our Car Club: 7/10 a slightly better one. When this song was heard on Surfer Girl, it was good fun. When heard on this album was its over-saturation of car-themed songs it's less appealing.

10. No-Go Showboat: 4/10 oh for crying out loud!

11. A Young Man is Gone: 8/10 sparse, beautifully sung and haunting, this finally gets the album going but a bit too late unfortunately.

12. Custom Machine: 4/10 this wretched custom machine can go flying off a cliff!

Best song: A Young Man is Gone
Worst song: No-Go Showboat

Summary: I did say I had a bad feeling about this album and I was right. To be fair, it started off alright but then went downhill very quickly. With repetitive, monotonous lyrics, too much reliance on the harmonies to excuse the lack of originality and too- many- darn- cars this is one fairly weak road trip. It's not actively bad, but it's the worst Beach Boys album yet. All in all, this is just a whole load of artificial car porn. It's barely a 5.



Final rating: 5/10