What is yacht rock? In the new HBO movie, Yacht Rock: A Documentaryno one can agree on a definition.
For comedian Fred Armisen, yacht rock is “a very relaxing feeling”. But for writer Rob Tannenbaum, yacht rock is a space where singers “could declare not only your sensitivity, but your torment of how sensitive you are, the feeling of being destroyed by emotions.” He calls this “quite unique to yacht rock”, which would be the case if soul music didn't exist.
How about another, more specific, definition: “One way to tell if you're listening to yacht rock is [if you hear] the sound of Michael McDonald's voice,” according to Alex Pappademas, its author Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors From the Songs of Steely Dan. Again, Ambrosia frontman David Pack calls McDonald's style “progressive R&B pop”, while Questlove describes yacht rock as “useful more than music”.
All of which begs the question: If yacht rock is such a vague label, what is it worth using?
JD Ryznar and Steve Huey helped coin this imprecise term in their 2005 mockumentary series Yacht Rocklong after the music it tried to name was out of fashion. Each episode traced the activities of wacky, fictional versions of McDonald, his contemporaries, and associates—Hall & Oates love to dive into “smooth music,” while Kenny Loggins' character says pompous things like, “when a friend is drowning in a Sea of Sorrow, you don't just throw them a life preserver, you swim one to them.”
As the yacht rock label took hold, it gave a set of younger listeners a way to explore and perhaps embrace—even if ironically—music that had become a kind of cultural shorthand for uncool, the target of mainstream jibes at Family Guy and The 40-year-old Panagia. “For a long time, I thought Steely Dan, man, that's just music for locals and weirdos,” says critic Amanda Petrusich in A Documentary. “You get it jokingly,” adds Pappademas, discussing yacht rock. “But then suddenly you find yourself genuinely appreciating it.”
As yacht rock DJ nights and streaming playlists proliferated, it highlighted the artists most associated with the style, helping to expand their careers. “I fully expected to be completely forgotten by the late 1980s,” McDonald tells the A Documentary. Instead, the movie it shows him and Loggins teaming up with bass virtuoso Thundercat in 2017 and playing at Coachella — one of the world's most prominent stages.
That said: While the yacht rock label has given rise to some artists, it actually spans the lineage of the music it purports to describe. It serves as camouflage, rather than providing clarity.
More specifically, the term hides the great debt these records owe to contemporary black music. Many of the tracks associated with the style are steeped in the language of 1970s R&B, speaking to the intricate, tortured funk, Marvin Gaye's flawless Quincy Jones productions and the airy, seductive ballads of Earth, Wind & Fire and the Isley Brothers scattered like bird seed in the second half of the seventies.
Dialogue was facilitated by session musicians who moved easily between worlds. Chuck Rainey played bass with Steely Dan but also appeared at Gaye's i want you and Cheryl Lynn's Cheryl Lynn. Greg Phillinganes handled keyboards for McDonald and Leo Sayer as well as Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. Horn player and arranger Jerry Hey jumped from Boz Scaggs and Michael Franks to Teena Marie and Janet Jackson.
A Documentary nods to the origins of yacht rock. “Yacht rock is associated with white groups and white songwriters and producers, but I know more Black yacht rock than I know traditional yacht rock,” says Questlove, pointing to Al Jarreau, the Pointer Sisters' “Slow Hand” and “Slow Hand” by George Benson. Turn your love.” However, this music doesn't get played much in the typical yacht rock conversation – or in it A Documentary.
What does it mean that one of the strands of white music that was most in touch with black music in the 1970s was largely reclaimed as a joke, even if an affectionate one? Armisen believes that “there's nothing more important, in a way, for any genre to make fun of, because it means it's relevant.”
This might be a reasonable perspective for a comedian. Unsurprisingly, however, sage themes don't always feel the same. “At first I felt a little offended, like we were being made fun of,” says Loggins. “But I began to see that it was also a backwards way of honoring us.”
Unlike Loggins, Donald Fagen of Steely Dan has not reached this stage of acceptance. When the documentary's director asked him about yacht rock, Fagen swore at him and hung up, an exchange that was recorded and included in the film. Longtime Steely Dan producer Gary Katz expressed similar disdain for the label's yacht rock — albeit using less colorful language — this summer during an interview with music director Scott Barkham at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
It is not unusual for artists to express hostility towards genre conventions. In fact, they keep saying they don't want to be “punched” or “put in a box.” When critic Kelefa Sanneh posted Important Tagsa music genre advocacy book, in 2021, wrote that artists “hate which are highlighted. And they think more about the rules they break than the rules they follow.”
There is certainly a case to be made against the whole idea of summing up a large body of art in a word or two. The result is, all too often, genre descriptions that are either completely vague or simply inaccurate. Some labels, however, are at least fairly neutral – 'post-punk', 'house music'. Some, on the other hand, have a negative connotation, unless they mock the songs they claim to describe: Take “bro country” or “PBR&B.”
As A Documentary makes it clear, “yacht rock” still gets reliable laughs. But even if that humor helped these musicians gain younger fans, it often clashed with the tone and themes of their songs. “The term came out of what was essentially a comedy show,” which had “a really big impact on the way music is now ironically appreciated,” Petrusich points out. However, “it records that [these artists] they were completely honest.”
Can these records – and the artists behind them – ever be taken seriously if they're still being laughed at? Loggins is an amazingly versatile songwriter with an unusual delivery and flair for unpredictable funk. McDonald's voice stood out even at a time when commanding voices were ubiquitous. songs like “You Belong to Me” and “I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)” are essential contributions to the soul canon. But when these acts get lumped into yacht rock, they're relegated to the minor leagues, stuck as purveyors of elegant chill music for the old and the affluent.
“I've made peace with 'yacht rock,' but in the early years I hated it,” Pack tells the A Documentary. I'm like, “Why did they pick our generation to make all our music a big joke?”
