Worst Beach Boys Song on Little Deuce Coupe - Part 19 in an Ongoing Series

Been listening to this one a lot in anticipation of this poll. It's fairly solid with no real duds, though that depends on your tolerance for songs about cars. I find many of the songs forgettable but enjoy them a lot when I'm listening (Car Crazy Cutie, No-Go Showboat). The ridiculous sincerity on Ballad of Ole' Betsy and A Young Man is Gone make those the worst for me. Voted Betsy.

I will have to listen to this and report back, cuz there's a few on here I don't remember off the top of my head. Will anyone vote Be True to Your School? I always hated my high school.

I hate my high school and love BTTYS

also: first concept album ever??? discuss

hmmm I doubt it. concept records are pretty old

yeah but in the 60s/70s rock 'album' tradition

yeah maybe - earliest thing I can think of is Trouble is a Lonesome Town, but that's '64

Yeah, dunno about rock stuff, but Sinatra had at least a couple "theme" albums ... and this (1940) http://www.springsteenlyrics.com/lyrics/p/prettyboyfloyd_alb-dbb.jpg

gonna go with Custom Machine here, which just seems the least well-formed tune here. 409 also seems kinda sloppy and poorly performed, but at least it has a decent hook.

Maybe because it was from their first album?

Four of the tracks here had already appeared on their earlier three albums, including two from the previous album released just ONE MONTH before this one.

You probably knew all that.

The first concept album ever would be "In The Wee Small Hours" by Frank Sinatra.

Anyway, going for "409" here, but my main beef about this album is not its high percentage of weak tracks, but rather its high percentage of repeats from earlier albums.

Earlier concept albums would be Les Baxter's Music Out of the Moon (1947) and Ritual of the Savage (1952).

I was mostly joking but you guys seem to have missed the moment when I said rockkkkkk

I don't know if Little Deuce Coupe would be rockkkkkk with that many k's.

*rockkkk

This is the worst of the early Beach Boys albums, probably because the car songs were starting to get very tired by then, plus there were a lot of rehashes of previous songs.

Then again, I have a mate who loves all of these, so what do I know.

The biscuit though is "Cherry Cherry Coupe" though, which is basically the tortoise to "Little Deuce Coupe"'s hare. It sounds like the Boys are cheering on a snail race at the summer fete rather than a car rally. "No Go Showboat" is also shite in a similar way.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I was surprised to notice that, per the RIAA, this is one of three Platinum-selling non-compilation albums by the BBs. The others: Pet Sounds and... Still Cruisin'.

IIRC this album was specifically designed to cash-in on the teen car craze - by the band! tbf Capitol started it by including a Beach Boys track in their own cash-in, but the Beach Boys weren't happy about that from the way they were used to the fact that they'd only get a fraction of the pie, hence an all-Beach Boys car album that would springboard off of what Capitol was already doing. (Not sure if initial sales accounted for the bulk of its million or if managed to find life as a steady seller.)

(Not to be confused with Shut Down Vol. 2 - the cash-in in question was the various artists compilation Shut Down, issue in June 1963, but Little Deuce Coupe was put together in response, similarly including a few cuts found on previous Beach Boys LP's, and came out that October. Shut Down Vol. 2 was kind of like dropping a tea bag in a second cup, trying to squeeze more mileage out of a diminishing musical fad - moreso for coming out in March 1964 (after the Beatles' came to the U.S.)

this is very low down on my list of favourites. cheery cherry coupe is abominable