Death to false yacht rock!

Dweezil Zappa and Bobcat Goldthwait.

 

Speaking of Toto, I just learned that Fergie has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Even so, he's headlining at his own benefit here in the Twin Cities with members of Santana and Survivor. Sad to know.

 

Frankly, I'm not entirely sure what "yacht rock" is, fake or otherwise, but I'll nominate McGuinn-Hillman-Clark

 

When I play my fife the fairies whisper me the secrets of tillage.

 

I have to admit, it's the first time I've come across the term. However, instead of posting a stupid question here like I usually do, I looked up the term on Wikipedia. Very interesting...

Doug

 

Kenny Loggins
England Dan and John Ford Coley
Little River Band

 

That's real yachty stuff, not fake.

 

I love me some Yacht Rock.

At my house I call it Backgammon Rock or Wine Rock.

Don't know about false practitioners though. If you get it, you get it. Everybody's welcome. But you have to be smooth...

 

Who do you guys think are the true Yacht Rock torchbearers nowadays? Sheryl Crow?

Oh, and Dweezil and Bobcat only wanted a yacht.

 

Jimmy Fallon celebrates yacht rock! He did a whole week of publicity that finished with C. Cross as his special guest for a yacht rock party on air.

Type in "jimmy fallon yacht rock", the festivities are well documented

 

Some stuff it's just automatically OKAY to threadcrap like freaking crazy, I guess!

For the record: I also love Yacht Rock. For the other record: Most people who don't didn't watch Yacht Rock on Channel 101.

False Yachters: CSN! Nothing remotely yachty about their sound, and yet they were posing on the yacht with the best of 'em.

 

Except they weren't posing. David Crosby is a real sailor, music aside. Plus, I'd say the smooth sounds of CSN and Daylight Again fit the vibe, though Daylight Again looks like it should be a prog album.

Here's one brought up in another thread. Do you accept McDonald era Doobies as yacht rockers, or as poseurs who should have staid playing for the Hell's Angels?

 

I really love those shows (and even started a thread about it some years ago)!. Yesterday I went into a store where you could buy three 45's for $1. The first one I picked up was... you guessed it What A Fool Believes by The Doobie Brothers. Written by Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins. Smoooooth... The Yacht Rock episode about that song is my favorite! Messina drunk in the alley, classic!

 

Same here.

 

So did Jefferson Airplane/Starship transform into a Yacht Rock band or pose as Yacht Rockers in their latter stages? Or were they Cross-Yacht Rockers? Can the lines be blurred?

 

He's a better example than Seals & Crofts, who have a significant folk music component. Yacht Rock is a modern construction which really describes the West Coast AOR scene from the mid-70's through mid-80's that centered on the players from Toto, David Foster, Michael Omartian, and (to some extent) the Quincy Jones production team.

 

Gawd, I hate the term "yacht rock"! Can we go back to using "mellow rock", "easy-listening", or something? And, using the term "yacht" sounds so derogatory.

 

Pablo Cruise?

 

McDonald era stuff is very Yacht Rock.

Jefferson Starship not so much: even their commercial albums like Nuclear Furniture were closer to hard rock. Once they became Starship, they were too mundane to even qualify for Yacht Rock status. More like Merde Rock.

 

Without question! And this thread would not be complete without mentioning Jay Ferguson's THUNDER ISLAND.

 

Yacht Rock : Rock :: Smooth Jazz : Jazz

 

I agree. It's offensive to yachts.

 

Yacht Rock is a kind of borderless concept as I understand it. Basically its music of a certain era (mid-70s through early 80s), suggestive of a certain amount of enjoyment and affluence, and not terribly demanding on the ears or mind. But who belongs, and who doesn't?

The Channel 101 Show seems to cast a wide net: Steely Dan (in sound if not content), The Eagles, Captain & Tennelle, Hall & Oates, Toto, and of course the Doobie Brothers. There's references made to other acts deemed not YR-compatable for various reasons, notably Van Halen, Caddyshack-era Kenny Loggins, and Jimmy Buffett. Buffett may be the only "false yacht rocker" as defined by the show; his music is described as beneath contempt even by musicians for whom more than one key change per song is too much like work.

Core concepts of Yacht Rock include smoothness, an emphasis on keyboards, no backbeat, even more smoothness, short guitar solos, and gentle lyrics with some humor but not too much depth (Steely Dan pushes the envelope here, but the content is vague and abtruse enough not to trouble the target listener, who let's face it isn't paying much attention). Warren Zevon would fail on lyrics alone, but Linda Ronstadt singing Warren Zevon might get a pass. I don't know; the show has never addressed this issue.

Other possible acts to consider would be Starbuck, Pablo Cruise, Bread, Ambrosia, Andrew Gold, and possibly British acts like Gerry Rafferty, England Dan & John Ford Coley, and later 10cc.

 

Man...this thread is SMOOTH!

 

Would Nina Gordon's solo career qualify as latter day yacht rock?