I mean, those genre classifications aren’t descriptors of quality. “Yacht rock” – to me – is more a vibe than anything else. It doesn’t say anything about quality. You’ll have great stuff in there and shit in there. I’m not a big Steely Dan fan, but they are fantistic musicians and songwriters (I do quite love “Peg”) and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was one day a critical reappraisal (if it hasn’t already happened) to some of the more “schlocky” yacht rock bands. Yes, the term “yacht rock” is a bit dismissive/disparaging, but it does seem to convey a certain vibe that I find useful. Just like I don’t call Van Halen “hair metal” or the Smashing Pumpkins “grunge,” I could see them being lopped into those categories for playlist purposes without too much an argument.
Exactly. And, because there aren’t a huge number of well-known, “good” songs which clearly fit into “yacht rock” (speaking as someone who enjoys the genre, I’d posit that there’s really only about 30 songs which fit that), if a radio station or streaming channel sets up a yacht rock format, they’re going to have to either (a) add in some lesser-known and lesser-quality songs, and/or (b) add in a wider range of soft rock from the late '70s and early '80s.
The Yacht Rock channel on Sirius XM has done this: they have a lot more songs in their playlist than they had when they first created the channel, several years ago, but a lot of them are arguably not yacht rock.
Christopher Cross (much disparaged as garbage AOR in my circles when I was young) sorta has in recent years to my amusement. I’m still not a fan, but I recognize his ability as a guitarist.
I’d argue against both for sure 
. Van Halen was proto-hair metal, but I’d regard them as distinct from the genre that emerged trying to copy them. Smashing Pumpkins were definitely not grunge to my mind, they’re about as generically alternative rock as the 1990’s got and I don’t mean that as an insult. Even aside from not being from the regional scene in the Pacific Northwest, Billy Corgan in the earlier years of the band was far too fond of shredding on guitar solos to ever count as grunge in my mind.
The Chilliwack songs I usually hear on the radio are My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone) and Fly at Night, neither of which are particularly soft rock or easy listening (IMO). Crazy Talk is pretty smooth, I guess.
They only had two songs which really got any airplay here in the U.S., as far as I can recall: “My Girl” and “I Believe” – the latter is definitely on the softer side.
Programmers are doomed if they play only “good” music, meaning to your taste and standards. They live on only if they play “popular” music. “Lost in Love” was a #1 song. Of course they’re going to play it.
The best thing about SiriusXM is the ability to change channels instantly.
That’s the one that gets regular “airplay” (Cableplay?). I can’t figure their criteria.
Yeah, the were definitely alternative hard rock or some sort. I can’t really lop them into a more specific genre, as they draw from so many influence from power pop to heavy metal to prog rock to shoegaze to post-punk and beyond. They are unique to me. Having them on the Singles soundtrack didn’t help from getting them lopped into the grunge category, either. (Though Paul Westerberg was also on that.) “System of a Down” is another hard-to-categorize band like that. They get lopped into nu-metal sometimes, but they don’t remind me of any of the other nu-metal bands.
Heck, even Heart (as “The Lovemongers”) with their cover of “Battle Of Evermore” were on the “Singles” soundtrack, and also Jimi Hendrix, so it wasn’t conceived only as grunge.
Ah, yes, forgot about “Evermore.” It wasn’t grunge-only, but it was very much as much of a grunge soundtrack as we got then. Certainly strongly associated with grunge. You had three songs there were obviously not grunge, and then “Drown,” which fits well enough into the grunge aesthetic.
Well yes, I concur. And I remember watching the film at the time (I was looking forward to seeing Pearl Jam in the flick, but their scenes felt stilted), and being disappointed what conventional and rather boring rom-com it was. But the soundtrack is fantastic.
It’s one of maybe two soundtracks I’ve ever owned (“Pulp Fiction” being the other one–it was pretty much a requirement if you were in college at the time the movie came out that you had the soundtrack) and how I discovered The Screaming Trees (even saw them in concert that year in a very, very weird lineup that had them first, Soul Asylum next, and Spin Doctors headlining.)
ETA: Oh, I also had the soundtrack to the Yugoslavian/Serbian movie “Underground” by Emir Kusturica. So I had three soundtracks. Not that anyone is verifying me for my musical album recall.
Well, I sort of like System of a Down and I kinda hate most nu-metal, so I wouldn’t want to place them in that category as well. Lumping them in with the likes of Limp Bizkit and Korn feels wrong somehow 
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But I get it, they were nu-metal adjacent at the very least.
A high school friend of mine worked on that album. (Hey, Tod-With-One-D!) … if you’re a Doper, tell us about the “point” of the choices on that soundtrack.
Well, I really can’t tell, I can only speculate. Given that the director of “Singles”, Cameron Crowe, is a music journalist, and I guess that he also mostly was responsible for putting together the soundtrack, I think that firstly he wanted to present that new, exciting genre of rock that had materialized in Seattle, grunge. As for the non-grunge titles on the soundtrack: the cover of “Battle Of Evermore” was probably included because Crowe had cut his teeth as a teenage reporter on a Led Zeppelin tour, the Jimi Hendrix song was a natural choice because he’ll always be Seattle’s greatest rock legend, and Paul Westerberg appeared because the Replacements had been an influence and a predecessor of grunge.
ETA: Oops, I see I was totally whooshed 
, you didn’t address me, but your friend Tod with one ‘d’. I let my assessment stand anyway.
And he was married to Nancy Wilson (Heart, The Lovemongers) at the time.
I didn’t know that.
I can’t speak for the 70s, but in the 80s, Air Supply and Hall and Oates were absolutely NOT played on AOR rock stations. At least, not in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I think “alt-metal” is the label I hear when people want to avoid placing them into “nu metal.” But they honestly don’t sound like nu-metal to me. There is something qualitatively different about their music.
Nor in Texas.
ETA: Don’t you have to have someone scratching records to be Nu Metal?