A music genre named twenty-five years after it began.

I didn’t know it until recently, but I love most of the Yacht Rock artists.  Yacht Rock is a music genre that dates between 1976 and 1984 with mostly California-based musicians creating a blend of soul, jazz and R & B.  Your favorite hits from those years, if you are old enough to have any, are probably Yacht Rock.  It has been called soft rock by some. It certainly doesn’t rock too hard, and it was immensely popular.  Here are some of the best-known Yacht Rockers:

Doobie Brothers
Christopher Cross
Steely Dan
Loggins and Messina
Eagles
Jimmy Buffet
Fleetwood Mac
Halls & Oats
Toto
Air Supply
Seals & Croft
Boz Scaggs
Jackson Brown
George Benson
Bill Withers
Chaka Kan
Al Jarreau
Huey Lewis and the News
Paul McCartney

How was it identified?  A group of comedians and writers in the early 2000s got together and made a web series called “Yacht Rock.”  The first 5-minute episode dropped in 2005.  It was a tongue-in-cheek, homemade show that humorously showed the lives of Yacht Rock musicians like Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Steely Dan, and others who dominated the late ‘70s and early ‘80s with smooth, highly produced, jazzy and soulful pop-rock music. The name they gave this music genre retroactively has stuck.

Another major characteristic of Yacht Rock Music was that most songs featured men singing about being ‘sad sack losers’ in a heartbreaking way.  Men were exposing their sensitivity.  This was unique to Yacht Rock – men having feelings.

MTV completely altered the music scene by the late ‘80s.  The highly polished, sophisticated, laid-back California vibe started to feel passé.  Suddenly, musicians became performers and needed cool looks, but the Yacht Rockers had risen to popularity in the pre-You Tube era. They were older, mellow, and focused on the ‘musicianship’ but needed to learn to dance and clean up their looks to fit in.  As music became a visual medium, Yacht Rockers got left behind.  The music stars that benefitted from MTV were acts like Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince, The Police, and Bon Jovi. Music became multi-dimensional and musicians had to be nice looking, have style, or be weird and crazy to garner an audience.

Yacht Rock has hung in however, but in a secondary way. In 1989 ‘sampling’ by new hip hop groups became popular.  Sampling includes the polished sounds of Yacht Rock in hip-hop songs.  Puff Daddy/P.Diddy, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z and De La Soul were among the artists that blended the smooth Yacht Rock sound with gritty rap. De La Soul was the most famous hip hop artist to do this with the Steely Dan song “Peg” and with Hall & Oates’ “I Can’t Go for That.” This continued through the 1990s and into the 2000s and introduced a younger generation to Yacht Rock music.  Yacht Rock made something of a “cool comeback” and DJs started playing their songs again at parties.

Around 2006-2007, the same group that coined the term Yacht Rock also developed the “Yachtski Scale.”  Not all soft rock was Yacht Rock, so the Scale was a rating system from 0 to 100 to determine how Yacht Rock the song was. A score of 50 or higher was certified Yacht Rock.  Below 50 was Nyacht Rock (stands for Not Yacht Rock). For example, Michael McDonald’s (formerly with the Doobie Brothers) “I Keep Forgettin’” rated in the high 90s (very YR!). Christopher Cross “Sailing” almost hit 100.  On the other hand, Christopher Cross’s song “Ride Like the Wind” was NYR because it was more energetic and rockier than smooth.

As Yacht Rock became recognized as a genre and gained a cult-like popularity, Yacht Rock cover bands exploded onto the music scene, often performing in boat shoes and captain’s hats.  Yacht Rock Revue from Atlanta is the best known of these cover bands.  These bands hit their peak by 2010 and feelgood Yacht Rock music had a certified resurgence.

In the 2020s, Yacht Rock’s popularity has again surged.  Partly due to nostalgia, and partly because the world has had a tough time with COVID, political chaos, and economic stress, people have sought out feel-good, comforting music.  The songs are SO catchy!  SiriusXM launched a “Yacht Rock Radio” channel around 2015, and it is very popular.  It runs seasonally every year and plays at BBQs, pool parties, long drives, or just relaxing.  Last year, a documentary was made about the Yacht Rock musicians.  It was part of HBO’s Music Box series and is called Yacht Rock – A Dockumentary.  You can find it on HBO/Max. If you like this style of music, you will enjoy the documentary.

A genre that was named 25 years after its emergence is unique.  As Kenny Loggins said, “it’s an ass-backwards way to describe us.”

Available on HBO/Max

 

SiriusXM has a channel called Yacht Rock Radio, which plays soft, smooth rock music from the late 70s and early 80s. It is available on channel 17 and online on channel 311.

Both Apple music and Spotify have Yacht Rock playlists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post All About Yacht Rock appeared first on Sharp Eye.