“Yacht rock? Where’s my fucking yacht?”
Thus spake Toto lead guitarist Steve Lukather near the end of HBO’s Yacht Rock.
I watched this film not knowing what the hell yacht rock is. I now understand the genesis of the genre and who its proponents consider yacht rockers. I still don’t get it because it’s a fake genre but who am I to judge? Film noir is a term coined retrospectively and I use it freely.
As near as I can tell, yacht rock is smooth R&B and jazz influenced pop music that rocks a little but not too hard. Steely Dan is the alleged progenitor of the genre but it’s a label Donald Fagen vehemently rejects. He told the director to go fuck himself upon being asked if he wanted to be interviewed for this documentary.
The thread connecting who or what is yacht rock is Toto, the band not Dorothy’s dog. The members of Toto are crack studio musicians who played with almost everyone who recorded in Los Angeles during the 1970’s and ’80’s. Interviews with the Toto guys are sprinkled throughout Yacht Rock. Keyboard player David Paich calls his band “a non-violent gang.”
I find Paich of particular interest as he’s the son of pop jazz pianist, arranger, and band leader Marty Paich. Paich the elder is best known for his work with Mel Tormé:
Paich the younger co-wrote this Boz Scaggs classic:
Sounds like yacht rock, right? Wrong according to the keepers of the genre. I still don’t get it but it’s their fake genre, not mine. Hall & Oates aren’t yacht rockers either:
Why? Beats the hell outta me.
The acknowledged king of yacht rock is Michael McDonald. I can’t argue that point. The yacht rockers consider What A Fool Believes the ultimate yacht rock tune. I’ll post another McDonald song since Fool was the subject of last week’s Friday Cocktail Hour:
Questlove is one of the film’s go-to talking heads. He states that McDonald “has a voice akin to a really funky Muppet.”
Mike McDonald is a rock star who looks nothing like one. He is, however, cooler looking than his pal Christopher Cross who resembles a nerdy high school music teacher. Here are the two unlikely rock stars performing one of Cross’ songs:
I had almost forgotten what a huge success Cross’ first album was. His career was all downhill from there.
As a Steely Dan fan, I’m baffled by the link between Cross and Steely Dan. Other than a polished sound they have nothing in common except for McDonald and the Toto guys. I suspect it’s one reason Donald Fagen declined to be interviewed. But how can I dislike a documentary that drills down on one of my favorite songs?
The Aja album is the holy grail for yacht rock enthusiasts. It’s where the movement such as it is begins. For me, Peg is the song I sing to my wee Calico cat substituting Claire for Peg. Will it get back to me? Beats the hell outta me.
Another outstanding talking head is guitarist Jay Graydon who adds some humor to the proceedings. More importantly, he’s the 7th and final guitarist to play the solo for Peg. His version made the cut. Ironically, in the 21st Century Steely Dan has had one main lead guitar player, Jon Herrington.
I still don’t know exactly what Yacht Rock is, but I enjoyed the movie. Here’s the trailer:
Grading Time: I give Yacht Rock 3 1/2 stars and an Adrastos grade of B+. If I knew what the hell yacht rock was, it might score higher. It’s a helluva lot of fun, which is what really matters.
In the end, yacht rock is nice music made by nice musicians. Perhaps that’s why it gets the irascible Mr. Fagen’s back up. Never change, Donald.
Oddly enough, I’ve had a mild case of writer’s block with this post. It’s a light and airy subject, which I found hard to write about after the truck attack on my city. But I wanted to lighten things up on the day after the 4th anniversary of the Dipshit Insurrection. What’s lighter than yacht rock?
The first word went to Toto’s Steve Lukather. The last word goes to Toto too:
I love this review so much I might have to watch it. I agree, what is yacht rock exactly? I don’t buy that Steely Dan is yacht rock, if the definition includes breezy music those two are/were (RIP Walter Becker) among the most cynical motherfuckers on the planet.
Glad you enjoyed it. Watch it, you won’t regret it. It’s more fun than a ferret down the pants. FYI, Toto have long been one of my musical guilty pleasures.
Maybe it helps to slot yacht rock into the historical development of rock and popular music. Early on, it was (mostly) guys wanting to get laid. The sound was raw and primitive and the records from the late 50s and early 60s bore that out. Then the Beatles and the Beach Boys came along with more challenging musicianship and vocal harmonies. Recordings had to up their game to capture the nuances and the subtleties, even if the subject of the songs was still about getting laid.
But the money followed, eventually, and the longer a group could last, the better they’d do financially and that meant upping the quality. More money attracted better musicians and writers. When the Beatles broke up and the Beach Boys went into hibernation, the playing field became much wider. The genre had room for “She Loves You (Yeah, yeah, yeah)” and “Fun, Fun, Fun” but also “Still . . . You Turn Me On” and “Roundabout” (and what slot(s) do Emerson Lake and Palmer and Yes fit in if they’re not considered yacht rock?). The Moody Blues. Chicago. Heck, even Barry Manilow. Love them or hate them, there’s no denying the talent.
Then came the backlash, as new musicians and groups arrived on the scene, longing to get back to the rough sound that started rock and roll. And so New Wave or Punk came to dominate the air waves. It’s tempting to say that the musicianship scaled down, but listen to The Clash’s “London Calling” album and try to make the case that these guys are inferior musicians. You can’t. It’s hard (if not impossible) now to listen to a record like The Police’s “Regatta de Blanc” and appreciate what a departure it was from what had gone before. But it was also a continuation.
I don’t have any better a handle on what makes a song or a group yacht rock. The music of the 1970s, for all the malign heaped on the popular music scene of that decade by critics, still holds up pretty well. And we haven’t mentioned even one woman (Carole King, Joni Mitchell) or female group (Heart) popular during those years.
First, I can’t believe someone as worldly as you has never heard the term “yacht rock” before! I can’t add much to what others have already said except to say when I was a pre-teen in the late 70s and early 80s this kind of music was EVERYwhere. It was even piped in on my school bus by the driver at the time. Even though I considered it “old people” music at the time, now that I’m much much older I can’t believe how much we took that music for granted. It was astonishingly well written, skillful, and listenable all at once. If a new band like Steely Dan hit terrestrial radio now with that amount of virtuosity and infectious hooks we’d lose our minds — imagine stumbling across unknown musicians that good in a live venue by accident. Final thoughts: I appreciate Gratuitous above bringing up Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Heart. They’re not Yacht Rock but they were hugely influential on later musicians of all sorts. And coincidentally I just listened to London Calling AND Regatta de Blanc last Saturday night, for the first time in decades, and in that order. On vinyl. Those albums still hold up very, very well.
I didn’t say I had never heard the term. I said I didn’t know what it meant. Your basic Adrastos post often has a running joke and that’s it for this post.