I’ve recently been introduced to this term. I don’t understand it. Music you’d listen to on a yacht? That could be anything. The internet defines it as an association with Californian soft rock. The term also carries a faint whiff of taking the piss, a slightly sniffy way of defining the entire genre. I’m very confused by this. As a twenty-year-old woman in 2018, am I supposed to want to listen to music which apparently smacks of 80s yuppies? Or is it meant to be a condescending take on a genre which is actually full of brilliant music? Considering the typical songs I’ve found on various ‘Yacht Rock’ playlists, the majority of it can’t be sniffed at. Hall and Oates? The Doobie Brothers? Toto? Steely Dan? Sod off. Of course there’s the odd song that does air on the wetter side of things (yachts, water, geddit?), but the vast majority seems to be very good. Let’s examine the evidence.
The Doobie Brothers. There are some songs where you can more clearly hear the twang of acoustic strings against a pick, or the brush of calloused fingers on metal during a chord change. It lends an extra level of intimacy, a warmth, to a song. This is present in Black Water, which combines deep southern imagery with a bluesy, gothic country backdrop. The outro culminates in a central conglomeration of layered vocal arrangements as the music drops away.
I feel the need to mention Long Train Runnin’ because it’s the One That Everyone Knows (you do know it). The two standout elements are the harmonies in the chorus and, of course, the opening riff. I wouldn’t have thought that you could make such a catchy song about trains, but there you go. There’s a romance attached to the imagery of big, cross-country American trains. The sorts that young vagabonds used to hop on and off of in search of work/themselves/love/the meaning of life. You couldn’t really write as good a song about Northern Rail (although the middle verse of LTR does mention train delays, so there are some parallels). Anyway…
Steely Dan are magnificent. Lyrically if nothing else, they’re one of the most original and imaginative bands I’ve ever come across – Kid Charlemagne, for example, a song based on the 1960s San Francisco LSD scene. When I say ‘original,’ I’m not necessarily being entirely complimentary as I am confused – much of my time spent listening to the words is taken up by thinking ‘how the hell did they get there?’ There’s something that sets apart Steely Dan and I think that the lyrics and themes of the songs have got a lot to do with it. Even Donald Fagen’s solo work from the Nightfly follows similar patterns – New Frontier is set under the assumption of nuclear war during the 1960s. Obviously the music is brilliant, but the thematic elements are of primary interest in the case of Steely Dan, purely for their complete individuality.
Hall and Oates. They’re fantastic. I know, I know my speciality is ranting about how good lots of bands are, but Hall and Oates really are two of the most talented songwriters. Take Kiss On My List or You Make my Dreams for example – common lyrical themes, but as with much of their catalogue, they’ve managed to cultivate an incredibly unique tone to their songwriting – harmony styles, vocal patterns, and such – whilst never falling into a repetitive formula.
We have to mention the Godfather of Yacht Rock himself, Mr Michal McDonald. Present on records by the Doobie Brothers (lead vocals on What a Fool Believes), Steely Dan & Toto (backing vocals on I’ll Be Over You), pretty much all at the same time, the guy basically owned the genre in the late 70s & early 80s. He also put out some solo work in between (I Gotta Try, for example). Look up the video of his character on Family Guy sneezing.
And then we come to the miscellaneous paragraph. The individual Yacht Rock gems that have woven their way into the genre and onto the playlists, standing alone next to the entire discography of Chicago. Such gems include You Can Do Magic by America – I love this song, it gives off a similar lyrical tone to the Eagles’ Witchy Woman: the supernatural powers of women (sugar and spice, etc.) I’d Really Love to See You Tonight by England Dan and John Ford Coley is a shared favourite of my dad and I, and no matter how many times each of us listens to it, whenever we’re in the same room and it comes on, we both almost simultaneously say ‘this is a bloody great song’. One of the great parts of it for me is that it’s not a huge, dramatic love ballad, it lets the melody do the talking, as it were, but the message in it is just as heartfelt. There are no mountain-moving promises, and it’s a bit of a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin kind of song, but I find that this gives it a gentler sense of intimacy. The last of the miscellaneous section is Dance With Me by Orleans. It was a coincidence that when I mentioned to my dad about my then-newly constructed Yacht Rock playlist, the very first song he mentioned was Dance With Me. It’s not complex, nor is it overly emotional, it’s just really, really sweet. As someone who has always loved dancing, it’s a really cute message for a song – “Dance with me, I want to be your partner, can’t you see…”
It’s actually really difficult to pinpoint a specific set of characteristics which universally define the Yacht Rock genre. The main theme seems to be the geographic origin of the bands. Maybe Yacht Rock is just a vibe? It may be a case of listening to a song, and the imaginary Yacht-o-meter beeps when there are enough harmonies to qualify it as yuppie-esque. Either way, I see no issue with Yacht Rock, but that might just be because I still have no idea if I should or not.