# Who listens to yacht rock anyway? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [August 18, 2020, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414 "2020-08-18T14:17:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/141 "2020-08-23T17:43:06Z")
Every New York song, attitude and feel they ever did is a repudiation of the idea of them as a part of anything called “yacht.” And there were a lot. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/142 "2020-08-23T17:48:09Z")
Any genre where you need to be this micro about who is in and who is out, well, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with music. It’s about audiophilia, and the power to be naming stuff. Music is alive. Microdata is not. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/143 "2020-08-24T12:27:00Z")
Just wanted to add to the song list [“Beach Baby” by The First Class.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge4l82FG6JY). Not sure the band ever got closer to LA than Portsmouth, England, but it’s a cracking song. Also fun because they got sued by the Sibelius estate for openly lifting a whole section of his Fifth Symphony to use in the song, and ended up having to pay half the song proceeds to them. Because nothing says sun, sand and surfing like…Finland? ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/144 "2020-08-24T13:49:06Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I once had a nonfiction book proposal approved by the editors but rejected in a marketing meeting because they couldn’t figure out instantly what section of the bookstore it would be placed in. Even more maddening I later saw a good dozen books on similar themes in bookstores over the years. What section did they end up putting those books into? Just curious. I’m sorry that your publisher lacked vision and robbed you of a fairly unique opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2020, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/145 "2020-08-24T16:58:49Z")
Various sections. It was a book explaining the numbers we see in everyday life, so most of them went into math or general science but it worked as general nonfiction or current events or, heck, self-help. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2020, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/146 "2020-08-26T23:59:26Z")
I like Africa and The Doobie Brothers. I also laugh every time the host refers to the music as “smooth-phisticated”. He should probably stop doing that. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2020, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/147 "2020-08-28T21:13:24Z")
FWIW here are the originators speaking on a podcast. > **[Yacht Rock’s Creators Curate Their Smooth-Music Genre](https://slate.com/podcasts/hit-parade/2020/08/chris-molanphy-talks-to-the-inventors-of-the-term-yacht-rock-about-how-they-define-the-genre?via=recirc_recent)** > > They knew their goofy creation had caught on when fans started showing up to see their videos in captain’s hats and Hawaiian shirts. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/148 "2020-08-29T22:33:20Z")
I get a cable channel named AXS, pronounced Access, as in backstage pass to a rock concert, so it does lots of concerts and rock docs and a few shows about rock (and wrestling and stuff even less fitting; how to run a cable station on $100 a day). One of the rock shows is The Top Ten Revealed. Each show has some theme and supposedly viewers vote for their top ten songs in it. Then concert snippets from each song is played while ~~washed-up metal rockers~~ , I mean, older veterans of rock comment. This obviously works better at some times than others, and it hit its nadir on the Yacht Rock episode. Just as obviously, the producers filming the responses had to keep reminding the talking heads to somehow work the word “yacht” into their answers, because they had no more idea what yacht rock is than the rest of us. Not to mention that soft rock wasn’t really their expertise, or even to their liking. Anyway, here’s what they played from 10 to 1. Michael McDonald, “I Keep Forgetting” Styx, “Come Sail Away” Commodores, “Easy” Seals & Crofts, “Summer Breeze” 10 CC, “The Things We Do for Love” Chicago, “You’re the Inspiration” Exile, “Kiss You All Over” Looking Glass, “Brandy” Hall & Oates, “Rich Girl” Christopher Cross, “Sailing” That’s a fairly representative list. As Sebastian Bach of Skid Row said, every third song in Yacht Rock has Michael McDonald on it. Styx seems out of place, though. “Easy” and “You’re My Inspiration” don’t fit my definition either. Yacht Rock is not synonymous with Soft Rock and Rock Ballads; it needs a bit of bounce and some pep. The problem is that “Sailing” is sorta the ur-song of the genre and it has neither. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/149 "2020-08-29T22:46:14Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Styx seems out of place, though. I agree, and so is “Brandy.” At least in my own head-canon about Yacht Rock, it’s “songs you would listen to on your yacht,” not “songs about sailing,” and because a song mentions ships or sailing, doesn’t automatically qualify it as Yacht Rock. ---
**Author:** ![MrKnowItAll](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrknowitall/32/87_2.png) [@MrKnowItAll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrKnowItAll)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/150 "2020-08-29T23:52:59Z")
I listen to music, not labels. Some of it is classed as "Yacht Rock’ and some of it isn’t. I don’t give a damn. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2020, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/151 "2020-08-30T00:11:42Z")
I enjoy Christopher Cross first album. I’m not sure why he’s in yacht rock. But, I like it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2020, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/152 "2020-08-30T00:38:30Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > and so is “Brandy.” Yes, it’s about a sailor, which is perhaps too on the nose. But it’s both poppy and peppy as well as one of the great examples of a rock song as a complete short story. It’s overplayed, true. Nevertheless, “Brandy, you’re a fine song.” ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2020, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/153 "2020-09-08T04:43:42Z")
Didn’t want to start a thread for this, so thought to put this here - a reaction video of two young men listening to Steely Dan for the first time. Their take on the guitar/organ solo is classic: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/EqITzPGD0Ko/maxresdefault.jpg "FIRST TIME HEARING Steely Dan - Do It Again REACTION") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqITzPGD0Ko) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2021, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/154 "2021-01-20T05:03:15Z")
Bumped. “Yacht Rock” was a category on the Dec. 18 episode of _Jeopardy!_, which I just saw. Christopher Cross, Foreigner, the Doobie Brothers, Rupert Holmes and Don Henley were mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2021, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414/155 "2021-04-17T10:46:04Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I think “don’t ask me why” is pretty close. Now that I’ve been reminded of this I’ve been listening to this several times a month and it is definitely Yacht Rock. It’s breezy and upper-middle-class, and neither definitely-soft nor hard rock, and even has a jazz-rock bridge. Don’t ask me why. Yacht rock. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-listens-to-yacht-rock-anyway/918414.md?page=7)