Stack-O-Tracks is an album release by The Beach Boys containing backing tracks to fifteen of their songs spanning their career to that point. Considered little more than a penny pincher when it came out,[citation needed] Stack-O-Tracks turned out to be a very educational album for those who wanted to know what went into the making of a Beach Boys music track. This type of release was unique for the band, and generally is unique throughout the music industry where backing tracks, in the rare event of their commercial release, are generally bonus tracks or b-sides to singles. 　　The Beach Boys third and final album release of 1968, coming after Friends and released the same day as the quickly gathered material for Best of The Beach Boys Vol. 3, Stack-O-Tracks was seen by many at the time as a desperate last-ditch effort by Capitol Records to try anything to sell Beach Boys material. The strategy backfired, however; issued at one of their lowest commercial ebbs in the U.S., Stack-O-Tracks became the first Beach Boys album to fail to reach the U.S. or UK charts. Until 1992's much-maligned Summer in Paradise, it would remain their only official release to have this distinction. 　　Nonetheless, featuring instrumental highlights from the past studio albums, and including a booklet with the bass lines, lead lines, chords and lyrics (to sing along with), Stack-O-Tracks was clearly a gift to those who wanted to hear what was going on beneath the lush harmonies. Stack-O-Tracks quickly disappeared and was out of print for two decades. In 1990, Capitol Records saw fit to re-issue it on CD, and again in 2001 - both releases without the handy booklet that accompanied the vinyl edition.