The Beach Boys Little Deuce Coupe/ All Summer Long   Average Rating:

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Customer Reviews         1-5 of 25  |  NEXT >>

2008-09-14
This is a great compilation smack in the middle of the Beach boys most productive period. Many songs are familiar big hits, and some are gems in the rough. The harmonies are simpley some of the best. Yes there are a few tunes that are not as polished as I would like. But, I would not pass up on this disc, no way no how. The line notes are excelllent giving short insightful summaries of each song.

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2007-08-16
This volume has been reviewed to death when it comes to the musical content, but I would recomend you read those of Peter D Harris and Thomas Magnum to get a good synopsis of the contents.

What I would like to add is a comment on the great liner notes, nine pages which include a track-by-track commentary, all written in 1990 by David Leaf, author of the Brian Wilson biography The Beach Boys And The California Myth. The insert also contains a complete discography of the contents, along with numerous photographs and album/45 rpm/poster reproductions.

Easily one of the better Beach Boys compilations still on the market.

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2007-07-25
If you are a hardcore Beach Boys fan and love them all the way from their first 45(Surfin on Candix), through all of their albums starting with Surfin Safari to their most recent release, you will see the quantum leaps they made in musical maturity with every album. I personelly love them the most when they had their signature "Beach Boys" sound, probably through to "Pet Sound" where their sound markably changed. You saw hints of the changes to come in the couple of albums prior to "Pet Sounds" but it matured into full bloom then. They have always had though no matter what their instrumental style was their trademark vocal arangements that Brian patterned after the Four Freshman songs he loved. And noone does it better or has come close to although we are seeing vocal groups begin to come back recently. These 2 albums(Little Deuce Coupe & All Summer Long)I think have some of their best signature songs/hits at a time when Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were really hitting their stride. They have all of the youthful exuberance and energy we love them for, but with some experience and polish that the two previvous albums didnt have. They are in their Car/Hot Rod period but there are still some Beach/Surf songs too(although this kind of is their swan song there), the Girl songs are always there as well. If you love them for their sound at this time, probably starting with LDC and continueing up to but not including Pet Sounds, these are their best albums vocally, instrumentally, and of course in production(on Brians end). There are some extra tracks which in some cases are pure joy when finding a killer rocking song(I loved All Dressed Up for School). This CD with 2 albums is an absolute essesital to anyones Beach Boys music collection. Don't get me wrong, I love just about everything Brian and the Beach Boy's have done, including one of Rock and Roll's classic albums of all times(Pet Sounds), but this is the Beach Boys I fell in love with and will play over and over again, period. I just wish there were more music like this today, but it isnt being done and it also was a place and time that has long been gone. Get these and sit back and enjoy their Sun drenched/Hi Revving genius.

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2007-01-30
Little Duece Coupe is the ultimate car consept record and plays great even though a few tracks are a few years old and already released.
All Summer Long is highly recomended and Brian's first peak. These 7 songs listed here are essesital listening.

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

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2006-12-10
Although the car or automobile has ruined the planet with its incessant demands for streets
and parking spaces and gas wars, these songs rule!

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Editorial Review

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



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