It’s not clear to me that anyone made any definitive claims about the quality of the musicianship present in this ridiculous “genre” of “yacht” “rock” in this thread.
I’ve neither seen or heard any evidence that such a kind of music exists, aside from the addled minds of a few youtube would-be impresarios.
Strongly disagree. (i) The “best musician in the world” simply wouldn’t play such a thing, unless under duress. (ii) The “songwriter” is somewhat similar to the “screenwriter”…he or she may provide some structural moments, but he or she is not very important when compared to the final result.
If you told Rudolf Nureyev to dance the Hokey Pokey, he’d dance a very competent Hokey Pokey, nothing more.
[quote=“Strenger, post:141, topic:1012120”]
Strongly disagree. (i) The “best musician in the world” simply wouldn’t play such a thing, unless under duress.[/quote]
Or unless they’re session musicians, and are paid to play, not improvise. The whole point of session musicians is that they do what they’re told.
As for screenplays, nobody likes a good screenplay more than an actor.
First, Beato is a cranky old man, and I preferred it when he stuck to talking about theory and what makes songs great. I don’t listen to him at all when he talks about modern music or matters of taste, so the appeal to authority actually has the opposite effect on me.
That said, fuck yeah these guys were great musicians. “Peg” is a classic, Rick Marotta playing one of the tastiest grooves I’ve ever heard, Chuck Rainey trying to hide his subtle slapping in the chorus from the boys (he was told not to slap, but he did anyway, but subtly) and that wild guitar solo, also one of my favorite. Up there with Andy Summers in “Driven to Tears” and Tom Verlaine in “Marquee Moon.”
But who cares if it’s lopped in an invented category called “yacht rock.” I dunno, for me it’s whimsical, evocative of the music. I know it originated as a bit of a joke, but I wouldn’t care. It less boring a genre name than just “soft rock.” I mean, hell, we called a certain type of meatheady hard rock “cock rock.” I don’t remember anyone really complaining.
Yeah, Beato is pretty sad, not much of an authority to appeal to. That he didn’t realize “soft rock” was already a thing back in the 70s, somehow thinks identifying this genre prevents evaluating it, and thinks that its players being accomplished somehow would prevent it from being soft rock just adds to the worthlessness of his commentary.
The bit about the musicians being good is the most hilarious part. Pete Christlieb was quoted earlier. His main job was playing in the Tonight Show band, and was apparently hired to play on “Deacon Blues” due to that reputation alone. Everyone in that band was a fantastic player, but that didn’t stop them from playing pretty mild, smooth jazz every night on TV. So how would having them play on your record keep it from being soft rock?
So, thanks for the reminder to not watch any Beato vids. I’d rather go watch folks smoosh random things on the Hydraulic Press Channel.
This is false. The great studio musicians were almost always brought in for two reasons. First, they were there because the producers knew they would come up with parts that were far better than what the songwriter could imagine. They weren’t told what to do, but rather to do what they do best. Second, because they could do that and record a perfect take often in one or two passes at most, they saved the studios a lot of money in recording studio time. But they were absolutely paid to improvise, and re-arrange, and even completely re-conceptualize the song into something that would make it better. Session drummer, Bernard Purdie, would bring a sign in that said “Congratulations, you just hired the hitmaker.” Steve Lukather, in his autobiography, talks about many songs that he played on where the musicians were given full freedom to, as he put it, “polish a turd.” They turned countless mediocre songs into major hits thanks to their creative abilities.
Case in point: Paul Simon wrote a pretty good song called “50 Ways to Leave your Lover.” But it was the drumming genius of Steve Gadd that made the song into an unforgettable hit with his amazing drum skills. Paul Simon didn’t tell him to play that groove, and probably thanked him profusely for turning a good song into a great one.
I supposed it depends on the producer. If indeed the producer tells the musicians to polish a turd, then they could make a bad song listenable. But if the producer just tells them to play the notes they’re given, then that’s all they’ll do. After all, it’s not like they’re getting royalties.
Yeah, but even then, they don’t really get “notes” in my experience, unless it’s a charted-out brass part or something of that nature. Often, it’ll just be a chord chart, or the musician takes their own notes, and fills in the blank with whatever comes to them. So, yeah, there’s a structure and chords, but there’s not really actual notes except maybe when a specific hook or fill is required.
One would have to be a pretty bad producer to utilize the talents of the A-list studio musicians in that way. In almost all cases, those guys were hired specifically for what they brought to the table. There are a thousand guys out there who could read down a chart. You hired Jeff Porcaro, Chuck Rainey, Larry Carlton, etc., because you wanted them to make something really special. And you didn’t get that result by telling them what to do. In many cases, if you told them what to play, they would walk out and tell you to hire someone else.
The story of how Carol Kaye created the bass line for Sonny & Cher’s The Beat Goes On comes to mind. Even Ruth Underwood, playing for the notoriously exacting Zappa, had some level of creative input.
Pretty sure Fagen and Becker were aware of his extensive resume playing with Woody Herman, Chet Baker, Count Basie, Vince Guaraldi and Louie Bellson, rather than “that guy on the Tonight Show.”
A “cat who blew like crazy with a gutsy sound” sound a bit at odds with your earlier description of “playing pretty mild, smooth jazz.” Then again, I would never characterize what the Tonight Show band played as “smooth jazz.” More like high-energy big band music. The term “smooth jazz” as a genre was coined in the 80s and referred to people like Kenny G.
Well, I would characterize most big band jazz played in the 70s as fairly smooth, easily consumable jazz, including Doc Severinsen’s Tonight Show Band.
And again, the "cat who blew like crazy with a gutsy sound” observed that the part he played immediately ended up in every airport bathroom in the world.
Exactly. As I probably already noted in this thread, Toto (one of the bands that is pretty much universally characterized as yacht rock) was formed by a group of L.A. studio musicians and friends, all of whom had (and continued to have, even after forming Toto) very successful careers as respected, skilled studio musicians.
Among the founding members of Toto were guys like Steve Lukather (guitar) and Jeff Porcaro (drums). Their work is prominent on albums like Michael Jackson’s Thriller – and while everyone knows about Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo on “Beat It,” it’s Lukather’s driving guitar riff that runs throughout that song.
Agreed. Not sure why there is so offense with the term. Do you think the members of bands like Poison, Warrant, and Cinderella get offended at “hair metal”? Or Nickelback and Creed getting called “butt rock”? Hell no! They wear those terms as badges of achievement on their stage getups!
Seriously, I agree with @pulykamell. It’s a name that makes sense to me. Just like hair metal and butt rock.