Here are some of the best yacht rock songs- per Google AI anyway- “Rich Girl” by Hall & Oates, “Hey Nineteen” by Steely Dan, “Horse With No Name” by America, “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac, “Thunder Island” by Jay Ferguson, “You Are the Woman” by Firefall, “Right Down the Line” by Gerry Rafferty, “Sundown” by Gordon Lightfoot, “Baby Come Back” by Player, and “Cool Change” by Little River Band.
And at least two of them- “Horse With No Name” by America, & “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac, are pretty solid rock classics. But there is no official definition anyway. If you say "I hate all yacht rock, you hate a lot of solid rock & roll.
The Beach Boys’ prime was during the early and mid '60s which is about ten years removed from the “Yacht Rock” era. That said, some of their lesser-known songs from the early '70s might qualify. “Sail On, Sailor,” in particular, sounds closer to Steely Dan than the music that’s normally associated with the group.
But, consider this. Running on Empty relates to your yacht running out of fuel while you brave it back to port. Lotta Love is whats it going to take to get that yacht moving again, and Sometimes When We Touch is what happens before the yacht magically starts back up. Its basically about alpha male fantasy music.
True for Seger, Adams, Springsteen and Johnny Hoosier (what my band called Mellencamp) but I really don’t see Jackson Browne as being much like those other guys at all.
Dude’s from L.A., not Iowa. He’s closer (though not that close) to Eagles than he is to those Heartland cats.
Heheh, I can imagine Fagen doesn’t relish this term either, but they basically made (really, pretty great) first-run muzak. It was mostly music without hard auditory elements. Other than the lyrical content of some songs, Steely Dan was smooth through and through, and they never stopped doing it. I say this as someone who likes and sometimes completely loves Steely Dan: they are the epitome of smooth rock, so they fit right in to the Yacht Rock ghetto.
If they weren’t, this wouldn’t have happened with “Deacon Blues”:
And hey, Fagen probably shouldn’t take it so hard. Lots of people would deride a good deal of my record collection and some of the music I make myself as not even being music. I manage to go on living anyway.
Springsteen’s from Jersey, not the American Heartland but his music still has that sort of working class Americana sound. I think that fit’s for Browne’s “Running on Empty”, but a lot of his other stuff I’m not really sure how to classify.
“Yacht Rock” I think of white dudes trying to be cool and soulful but coming off (at least to modern sensibilities) sort of cringey. Escape (The Piña Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes is probably the quintessential yacht rock song. Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty is another good example (saxophone tends to give it away). Anything by Michael McDonald. Captain & Tennille (he’s a fucking captain for Christ’s sake). I’ll throw Jimmy Buffet in there as well. Hall & Oates, Doobie Brothers, so on and so forth.
Basically songs by, for, and/or about middle age men in the 70s taking their sailboat down to Key Largo to drink fruity umbrella drinks and have relationships with much younger women.
The fact the Sirius XM channel has their tag-phrase delivered by a very bad Thurston Howell III impersonator says all we need to know about how seriously to take this genre of music. Or at least this categorization / explanation of this genre of music.
Nevertheless, the songs McDonald wrote for them are quintessential YR.
The documentary found that many of the core songs were men singing about their lost loves and regretting what a fool they’ve been. Huge difference, though, between the Doobie’s “What a Fool Believes” and the Dan’s “Only a Fool Will Tell You.”
I wonder how much the definition of YR is more about the sound than the lyrics?
Even amongst today’s pop there are plenty of songs that have a very romantic lovey sort of sound, but the actual lyrics amount to “Screw you and the horse you rode in on” or “Fat chance with me, you loser.” I’m often kinda disappointed when I hunt up a variant with the lyrics displayed and find out what sounded so good reads so bad.
Some of the most romantic are of the “Sorry Honey, but we gotta break up” message. Don’t send that one to your SO unless you’re sure they know what you really mean.
