Little Deuce Coupe was a concept album of sorts, in that most of the songs had something to do with cars and hot rod culture. That's a pretty thin train of thought to sustain for most of a record. What's worse, by
the Beach Boys' own standards of hot rod tunes, most of the tracks are pretty trite and unimaginative, rating among their worst early material. Not only that, the three best cuts -- "Little Deuce Coupe," "409," and "Shut Down" -- had already been issued on LP. The most noteworthy of the other tracks was the Top Ten hit "Be True to Your School," whose fine tune and arrangement are marred by sappy lyrics of faith and loyalty to one's high school. (The album version, oddly, is different from the superior single, which had the Honeys adding female cheerleader chants.) "Spirit of America" and "A Young Man Is Gone" (a
James Dean tribute with
Four Freshmen-style vocals) are moderately interesting numbers, but on the whole this is probably the worst early
Beach Boys album, with the possible exception of Surfin' Safari (and their 1964 Christmas LP, which doesn't really count). [Capitol's 2012 reissue, mastered by Mark Linett earlier that year, contained mono and stereo versions of the album; the mono versions had never appeared digitally, and new stereo extraction mixes of "409" and "A Young Man Is Gone" were used.] ~ Richie Unterberger