What is “Yacht Rock”?

It's terrible pop music old people listened to in 1982.

Slickly produced AOR stuff that yuppies and boomers would presumably listen to on their yacht...Boz Scaggs, Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers, etc.

It SiriusXM’s answer to what they believe middle class people might listen to if they were sitting on a yacht. Basically soft rock from the 70’s and 80’s. Think Christopher Cross, Toto, Hall and Oates. It mind numbing and sad.

Doesn’t rock the boat indeed.

Music from about 1972-85. They need to add to their playlist but there’s some good ear worms that are fun to listen to.

One of those things that is better in theory than reality. Especially when the Steely Dan comes in.

Never knew love like this before - Stephanie Mills

If you leave me now - Chicago

Carly Simon. “You walked into the party, like you were walking onto a yacht....”

For a few of us, that music is the soundtrack of our lives.

Just sit back and relax.🌊⚓️🚤⛵️🛥⛴

Year of the cat - Al Stewart

I wonder what the Steely Dan feels like when it comes in.

How Long - Ace

Nice, R13

Brandy you're a fine girl, what a good wife you would be, but my life, my lover, my lady is the sea.

Christopher Cross, Sailing

This sounds real groovy! ✌️

My favourite Sirius station during the summers!

Thunder Island - Jay Ferguson

Lake Shore Drive - Aliotta Haynes & Jeremiah

This a deeper cut for yacht rock. But I am into it.

Yes, this was a choice on the SiriusXM playlist. I appreciate you all letting me know what this is but honestly it sounds identical to 11 other channel choices.

I love Steely Dan.

I do not own a yacht.

I fucking love yacht rock.

Joy to the world - Three Dog Night

Half the way - Crystal Gayle

My definition of “yacht rock” is basically anything I was made to listen to on my way into school in the late 70s and early 80s.

This is the music you listen to when you're considering suicide and need encouragement. Exception with "Joy to the World" which is a fun song.

R14, that is the great Paul Carrack there in Ace, who has been in several groups and really shows his vocal stuff here in Mike and the Mechanics. Don’t know if this qualifies as Yacht Rock?

Stuff like this:

Yacht Rock LOVES Mr. Christopher Cross! They play practically every song he’s sung.

This pretty awesome web series on the subject actually coined the term:

R17's pick is the apotheosis of Yacht Rock.

God, I have some sociable neighbors that like to do summer cookouts by their pool. They always have yacht rock going.

The Steve Miller Band is transitional.

Cool Change will always be the ultimate Yacht Rock song to me. They also used to play it all the time at the pool at the rec center I went to as a kid, so when I hear it in my head it is echoey, bouncing off water and cement

OP, if only there were somehow a system of tubes that would allow you to type in that question and then have the answer appear!

There are a lot of Yacht Rock bands - Yachtley Crew is a good one - that play at some pretty decent sized venues.

It's a lot of fun - no really.

R36 played in our backyard pre covid .

I love Little River Band...this entire album, actually. I'm not sure if this is the actual album I had (because it seems there were several variations on some of the songs, depending in what country they sold the album).

Atlanta Rhythm Section's version of Spooky

Soft rock.

To all the haters, if you were on a yacht, would you rather listen to Steely Dan or Joy Division?

If I had a yacht, I'd play Herb Alpert all the time and have a crew of chiseled, brunette, depressed men mourning untold losses.

I'd also have weed, cheap white wine, and scoglio. Do baguettes keep on a yacht?

Anyway, I'd wear Ocean Pacific knockoffs and the crew would be stuck in tight black Theory. They'd have to save whales or pick up garbage or something.

Nobody mentioned Baker Street yet? It's in heavy rotation. Also, Michael McDonald is the singer of 20% of all Yacht Rock songs.

There's a Teitter account dedicated to Yacht Rock.

This guy was Yacht Rock personified: the sound, the beard, the awful, schlub-next-door wardrobe, and the complete lack of stage presence.

Yacht rock is produced in a cocaine dense environment and the crunchy sparkle of booger sugar clings to all aspects of its consumption.

So into you - Atlanta rhythm section.

Pablo Cruise 🚢

Mr. Mister

r47 Imaginary Lover, and (the best version of) Spooky (as said upthread) too. Also Do it or Die was a special kind of cheesy yacht music.

Also, i wouldn't exactly classify this as yacht rock, but it was that time period. And i love that it has the prelude to the actual song.

Think Wildfire would count by Michael Martin Murphey?

I consider yacht rock to be closer to blue-eyed soul or soft rock with a jazzy influence...less country or folk. More coke, less weed.

Easy listening music of the late 60s and early 70s was even more relaxing.

Ha, R55 - my ex-husband used to call us on our wedding anniversary (June 21st) for the first 15 years of us splitting up and singing this to me. Happily, he has stopped this nonsense.

Summer Breeze trumps all of these songs. I'll love it forever!

A lot of Todd Rundgren’s music was also yacht-rockish.

"It was cartoons on Saturday morning that taught about government with a catchy songs. We watched it every Saturday morning back in St.Olaf"

"Learned a lot, Rose? That was Schoolhouse Rock you idiot!"

OP is also asking, "What is a Google search?"

A lot of overlap with "Frat Rock"--think Doobies, Huey Lewis--a driving beat but not much else.

Steely Dan and Rundgren are too musically complicated to really fit the genre and horrible soft rock like "Wildfire" is another genre entirely. Christopher Cross was too am radio.

I read this recently and had to look it up, it is what I would call “soft rock”

OP here R66. Google is not nearly as fun and nuanced as DL. Thanks for playing.

Featuring Kenny Loggins AND Michael McDonald!

The sound of ex-hippie, proto-yuppies snorting coke on a yacht.

My dad is 67 but was a music snob back in the day.

I asked him about "Yacht Rock" and his response was something to the effect that it was "the crap that all the people who weren't listening to the music on [Sirius XM's] First Wave were listening to."

From scanning this thread, that seems about accurate.

It’s basically Christopher Cross “Sailing”.

R72 - no - First Wave's stuff doesn't have a ton of late 70's stuff - it's more 80's. And that music was not easy to find on the radio. If it was played, it was on one smaller station with lower power. WLIR comes to mind - you had to twist your antenna around to try and get that station sometimes.

Your dad sounds a bit old to be into First Wave - his teenage years were late 60's / early 70's. But good for him if he loves it.

Webster’s Dictionary defines Yacht Rock as “…any song created or recreated between 1975 and 1983* with Michael McDonald singing lead (including the Doobie Brothers), singing back up (excluding the Doobie Brothers), or having had his name listed anywhere in the song credits”.

You’re welcome.

R75 here again. Ignore the asterisk.

Chop me a line, pour some Cristal, apply Bain de Soleil for the San Tropez tan...

Not yacht rock, r61, sorry (not "smyooth" enough).

This is:

r54 Captain Of Her Heart came out too late to be considered Yacht Rock, but it is part of Yacht Rock's close cousin, Sophisti-Pop - music that emerged during the mid-1980s in the UK which incorporated elements of new wave, jazz, soul, and pop.

LIke all other SIRIUS music channels, the playlist appears to be limited to about 50 songs.

Pablo Cruise, "A Place In The Sun".

[quote]LIke all other SIRIUS music channels, the playlist appears to be limited to about 50 songs.

And 25 of them are Christopher Cross.

Rupert Holmes is best remembered for the Pina Colada song, but he had a much better, now-forgotten hit

Rupert Holmes - Him

Peg - Steely Dan with Michael McDonald

I Really Don't Know Anymore & Ride Like The Wind - Christopher Cross with Michael McDonald

Minute By Minute & What A Fool Believes - Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald

I'll Be Over You - Toto with Michael McDonald

I Gotta Try, I Keep Forgetting & Sweet Freedom - Michael McDonald

This Is It - Kenny Loggins with Michael McDonald

Dan Fogelberg - Same Old Lang Syne

We had a radio station in Southern California dedicated to this. 94.7 "The Wave". And yes, we had a yacht. And yes, this was the music my parents played. And yes, I hated it.

Nicolette Larson - Lotta Love

This is not the original release, but it's a cool remix that doesn't totally change the song

Starbuck - Moonlight Feels Right

Rick Moranis as Michael McDonald....

Sanford-Townsend Band - Smoke From A Distant Fire

Ambrosia - Biggest Part Of Me

Ambrosia's lead singer was the incredible David Pack, who later also produced work by singers such as Patti Austin ad Barbra Streisand.

Here is a great (GREAT) Yacht Rock song with David Pack, Michael McDonald (but of course!), and the late, great James Ingram.

Michael Jackson -- "Human Nature"

I actually dig that song R88. The marimba break was wonderfully creative in my view and whoever sang that song did so in a tongue and cheek manner which was mildly predatory what for the lyrics.

All y'all forgot "Key Largo." I thought it was called "Bogie and Bacall" so it took me a hot minute to find the original cheesy video. So cheesy, so yacht rocky. I feel that the very video itself encapsulates the yacht rock era in a way few videos did back then and a minimum of five lines of cocaine play a supporting role in the video as well. What's not to love?

Christopher Cross is the Patron Saint of yacht rock. Love him or hate him. He owned that dayum era. Owned it. He has a gorgeous high tenor and can sing the Beach Boys songbook live and pro tool free. Poor thing, though, I hope his continued Covid-19 recovery is going well.

I posted Key Largo upthread

I'm sorry for having quite inadvertently missing that R95. No harm meant.

I don't think yacht rock would exist without the King of Yacht Rock. His voice is pure gold and he writes good tunes.

Two words: Kenny Loggins

Yacht rock playlist

I noticed they took Dan fogelberg out of their playlist this year and he’s been pretty prominent in years before.

Some songs that should be there-

AlSmokey Robinson’s crusin and being with you

Kim carnes more love

bee gees love you inside and spirits having flown

Andy gibbs love is thicker than water and desire

Paul Davis sweet life and 65 love affair

Bobby Goldsboro summer the first time

People - has nobody brought up THIS classic featuring the ubiquitous Michael McDonald?

REO Speedwagon

[quote]and the late, great James Ingram.

Wait. James Ingram is dead??

Hearts by Marty Balin

Shannon that song about a dog.

Chevy Van

Gold by John Stewart and DL icon Stevie Nicks

Eye in the Sky by the Alan Parson Project

I’d Really Love to See You Tonight by England Dan and John Ford Coley

Miracles, Ride the Tiger, Count on Me, Runaway and Find Your Way Back all by Jefferson Starship.

Hotel California by Eagles

Anything ever done by Air Supply.

I love Eye in the Sky/Alan Parsons Pretty much all by England Dan/John For Coley Hearts by Marty Balin (Is everything alright?)

Air Supply sucks ass.

Sorry, ^^formatting issues.

Eye in the Sky/Alan Parsons

England Dan/John Ford Coley

Hearts/Marty Balin (is everything alright?)

Air Supply sucks. Seriously. Ok, Lost in Love is pretty good. That's about it.

Africa! (I bless the rains!)

Yawn rock

Kenny Loggins AND Stevie Nicks herself!

Gotta be smooth!

Carly Simon - You Belong to Me.

Yacht Rock

All of this music is what you hear in a waiting room or elevator. Seriously?

R103

Yes. Ingram died of brain cancer on January 29, 2019, at the age of 66.

One of the greats.

R111 That’s better than Cardi B’s stuff, which only gets played in waiting rooms of STD clinics.

Yacht Rock was a series of children’s animated shorts from the early 70s shown on Saturday morning, using hijinks, fun and music to explain yacht design and ownership.

This is the kind of thread where people post without reading what has already been posted. So tedious.

R1 must have premature hearing loss in addition to being an ageist prick.

The Babys - Every Time I Think Of You

Climax Blues Band - Couldn't Get It Right

Atlanta Rhythm Section - So Into You

Lots of love here for the Kings of Yacht Rock, but as usual, the Queens get overlooked

Linda Ronstadt - Blue Bayou

Jennifer Warnes - Right Time Of The Night

Most of this is just dreadful late 70s and early 80s stuff. And, no, almost none of it is on my Itunes.

What’s an “Itunes”

As a child of the 70s I have warm memories of a lot of these songs. Special credit must be given to the artistry of the composers, singers, producers and instrumentalists who made memorable songs without help from computers. I don't find any of it "dreadful" but I guess it's cool to say that. I will say I am tired of many of the songs by now, and Yacht Rock on Sirius/XM is an embarrassment considering how limited the playlist appears to be ("Year of the Cat" every 6 hours).

Totally agree about the repetitiveness of the songs. I love the station and listen to it regularly during the summer months, but I do tire of the same songs all the time.

Other songs they omitted/won’t play

Stephen bishop on and on

Andrew gold lonely boy

The floaters float on

Chris rea fool if you think it’s over

Toby beau my angel baby

Pointer sisters slow hand

Robert John sad eyes

Johnny rivers swayin to the music

You can’t have a yacht without a captain.

And a Tennille!

Baby come to me

Patti Austin + James Ingram

The Pointer Sisters are R&B, not yacht rock.

"Reminiscing" -- Little River Band

Their songs He’s So Shy, Fire, Slow Hand can fit into the Yacht box.

R46

[quote] —The cuervo gold...the fine Columbian...

Oh, DEAR.

The guys who made the "Yacht Rock" video series and coined the term "Yacht Rock" have a website and a podcast, "Beyond Yacht Rock".

They have very stringent guidelines on what constitutes "Yacht Rock". One of the features of their podcast is a segment called "Yacht or Nacht?", where they listen to a song, and determine whether or not it belongs in the Yacht Rock canon.

Check out their "Beyond Yacht Rock Certified Playlist" on Spotify if you want a good idea of what "Yacht Rock" is.

This thread has taught me that Yacht Rock includes a SHIT TON of really really good songs.

It's really bizarre that people make fun of it.

They don’t make fun of it everywhere. It’s popular otherwise it wouldn’t be a genera.

It's one of my favorite music jandras

They're list is pretty inconsistent. Steely Dan had a different and more idiosyncratic fan base than most of the other performers, as well as more complex music. There's also the issue of Dolly Parton (not rock), Johnny Mathis (not rock and really a 50s performer) and people who are well into R&B. They also seem not to have a lot of the late stage California crap like the Eagles (except for the awful Hotel California), although they have soft rock that is "adjacent" to that.

The hard core seems to be soft jazz (George Benson, et al.), watered down R&B, pop vocalists like Dionne Warwick (maybe that's why Dolly is here), soft--latter day--folk rock, lots of Michael McDonald (maybe its his association with Steely Dan that brings them in), rock bands that were considered lame (like Toto) and some Frat Rock (Doobies). It doesn't include those horrible 70s, last gasp of AM Top 40 songs that people keep nominating, but it's still stuff that's mostly fluff and forgettable.

"Sarah, Sarah" -- Jonathan Butler

R135

[quote] It’s popular otherwise it wouldn’t be a genera.

Oh, dear.

[quote] They're list is pretty inconsistent.

Oh, dear!

Ari and moi j'adore yacht rock.

R133 This yacht rock playlist is terrible.

I Just Wanna Stop - Gino Vannelli is Yacht Rock.

I would add

Earth Wind and Fire’s after the love is gone and fantasy

Charlie dore pilot of the airwaves

Eddie rabbit suspicions

Seals and Crofts we may never pass this way again

Ray Parker jr you can’t change that/ I still can’t get over loving you

A DL two-fer: a Yacht Rock Peter Allen cover:

Pablo Cruise - I Go To Rio

Yes I agree that Spotify list is bizarre. I am in my late 50s and am pretty well-versed in music up to the end of last century and I don't recognize a lot of the artists let alone the individual songs.

Paul Simon - "Jonah"

They invented this so people in yachts could listen to rock music without scaring the fish away.

It’s weird that people on this site, who mostly seem to listen to light popular music such as Dance-Pop, K-Pop and Divas like Mariah and Whitney, think something like Yacht-Rock is not edgy enough for them.

It was too edgy for Lawrence Welk but not edgy enough for MTV.

Just because MTV played it or it scares away fishes does not make it good music

R149, reminds me of the people who say "Disco Sucks" but listen to Rihanna all day

The Boomers who hated disco were no better than their parents who hated rock 'n' roll, and they failed to recognize the hypocrisy.

Yacht Rock was so popular that Country artists started producing their songs in that style

Terri Gibbs - Somebody's Knocking

2 more Country artists who jumped on board

Kenny Rogers & Dottie West - What Are We Doing In Love

dottie west died 30 years ago? who knew? she seems like she would be a DL fave

Dottie's life certainly had a lot of ingredients for DL Icon status - drinking and money problems, multiple husbands, flashy dresser well past her age, cheesy movie where she was portrayed by Michelle Lee, tragic early death, etc.

This is a pretty damn good playlist.

Dan Seals without John Ford Coley or the false claim that he was from England:

My Tidy Bowl Man sings Yacht Rock.

I don't quite get where you draw the line.

Isn’t it Phil Collins or Huey Lewis?

I always imagine people who own yachts to be secretly sad. Like that old guy in Cocktail who shot himself after Tom Cruise pestered him.

Amazon Alexa has a Yacht Rock station too! I just said "Alexa, play Yacht Rock" and boom... Michael McDonald is singing What a Fool Believes!

Thank you! I lived an worked in Chicago for around seven years. Lots of fond memories

Christopher Cross' Sailing gets a lot of praise as a top Yacht Rock song, but John Denver took that voyage before him:

John Denver - Calypso

I tried to read the whole list of replies, honest, but the flashbacks were about to kill me and I had to stop around No. 100. Has NO ONE yet mentioned the Complete Works of the Captain and Tennille? He was a FUCKING *CAPTAIN*, for God's sake!!

You can see from all this mainstream, canned garbage where the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, et al. came from.

Yeah, because Blondie never had any "mainstream" success

"Countrypolitan" was the country music equivalent to Yacht Rock. Crystal Gayle was its mistress.

Yacht Rock was basically a Carter-era phenomenon, like punk and disco. I'd chart its beginning somewhere around 1976, when Boz Scaggs released Silk Degrees and Michael McDonald joined the Doobie Bros. There was heavy overlap with the more commercial jazz fusion of the time, and they often utilized the same top drawer studio musicians - Larry Carlton, Jay Graydon, Lee Ritenour, Steve Gadd, etc. It lasted a few years into the 80s, but by the time MTV was huge it was more or less over. Producing records became more about mastering the latest technology and making an eye-catching video than immaculate studio craftsmanship.

Christopher Cross, quintessential.

Like like a lot of musicians of the era, Crystal Gayle could go full Yacht Rock when she wanted

Crystal Gayle - Half The Way

Q: What does it take to make your blue eyes turn brown, ahem? Ans: When you fill up with shit.

Basically, it seems to be the AM radio play list from the late 70s/very beginning of the 80s, without too much rhyme or reason, with some watered down jazz and country tossed-in. It reminds me that I was stuck with AM in the car for awhile then.

There should be a category where it's just the sound of a younger Michael McDonald pounding my hole while reading a mexican takeout menu.

I started listening to “forbidden” 70s rock like Steely Dan, because all the people from the punk/new wave generation hated it.

For those bored by the overplayed songs on SiriusXM's Yacht Rock channel, on their app they now have a Yacht Rock Deep Cuts channel.

It sprinkles in a few of the forgotten hits with album songs by one hit wonders of the era that show that some of them are truly underappreciated.