Fresh Listen: Yacht Rock and Soft Rock

I just found the Yacht Rock Weekend song list I put together for a Classic Hits client in 2015. SiriusXM’s Yacht Rock Radio channel was recently launched, and phenomenal, especially among radio people. As it happened, the PD of this station wasn’t a fan. He didn’t love the concept, especially for our not-so-beachy market, and relatively rocking Classic Hits station, and we didn’t do the Yacht Rock Weekend again.

By that time, it was already understood that “Yacht Rock” as the industry defined it was a little broader than how the creators of the creators of the Yacht Rock web series regarded the genre. Their definition focused tightly on the late ‘70s/early ‘80s intersection of disco, jazz, and soft rock. Many programmers were willing to choose from the non-overlapping parts of the Venn diagram as well. Part of that was because there were so many songs that listeners were enjoying hearing again and they all sounded pretty good together.

Besides the obligatory “Lowdown” and “What a Fool Believes,” my 2015 list included a lot of things that do not pass muster with the Yacht Rock team. I played “Margaritaville” twice. They give it one of their lowest ratings, and they don’t include “Thunder Island” either, just because it’s nautically themed. My list had a lot of the era’s soft pop (“You Can Do Magic,” “Emotion,” “We Just Disagree,” “Moonlight Feels Right”) that they don’t include.

Interestingly, a lot of the same titles were part of the subsequent discussion around 2018-19 when the Soft AC format exploded. Many of them were judged too old for the mostly ‘80s-based stations, but they’re now the centerpiece of successful ‘60s/’70s-based stations like KDRI (The Drive) Tucson, Ariz. (Fans of KDRI will also enjoy the relaunched KDZA Pueblo, Colo., which has a similar playlist and a similar emphasis on localism).

Last week, while highlighting Memorial Day Weekend special programming, I mentioned a Facebook dialogue between Connoisseur Communications’ Keith Dakin and talent consultant Steve Reynolds, known for his condemnations of some of the outlier titles on the SiriusXM channel (e.g., “Answering Machine” by Rupert Holmes.) “WEBE [Bridgeport, Conn.] is 24/7 yacht rock, just to upset Steve Reynolds who will think some are ‘nyacht rock.’” “I’ll be listening with a fine-tooth comb,” Reynolds replied.

One either has patience for this discussion or nyacht. That Facebook exchange made a friend grimace to think that anybody would spend so much time on the minute classification of records he didn’t like anyway. Regular readers also know my dismay that most of 1981 CHR found a place for the Little River Band and not the Gap Band. My favorite song from Quincy Jones’ The Dude is “Bet’cha Wouldn’t Hurt Me,” a smooth-but-propulsive Stevie Wonder jam that would have fit on Off the Wall. R&B radio played it as an album cut, but “One Hundred Ways” was what could cross to Top 40 during the doldrums.

But I also understand that these are songs that a lot of people grew up with and loved. In general, writing about The Lost Factor of songs from that era is a reminder that the “Steal Away”-level songs didn’t get to be hits without a lot of people liking them. (The second tier is another matter, and those songs are chief among those that weren’t brought back, even when “yacht rock” gave radio the impetus to play Hall & Oates again.) Also, the yacht/nyacht discussion is the only place where the inevitable disagreement among radio people on how to properly stylistically code the songs on their playlist can ever be in any way interesting to civilians.

To some extent, the “Yacht Rock” disagreement exists because the term did not in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. In fall 1977, listeners experienced “You Make Lovin’ Fun,” “Just Remember I Love You,” “We Just Disagree,” “Thunder Island,” and “Sometimes When We Touch” as roughly of a piece, despite the very different rock cred and durability they came to exhibit later. WEBE also calls them “Smooth Songs from the ‘70s and ‘80s.” That gives you more room to maneuver. I always liked PD Dave Denver’s characterization of mid-’00s WOLL West Palm Beach, Fla., as “songs you’d hear at the tiki bar.” Phrased that way, most of these fit as well.

There’s also the matter of having enough songs to play for an entire weekend. If you’re a stickler about whether “Kiss You All Over” fits, you’ll probably just go deep somewhere else (e.g., “Answering Machine”). WTOJ (Magic 103.1) Watertown, N.Y., did a Yacht Rock Weekend as well. Like WEBE, they went with the broader definition of the term, although PD Ken Martin modified his music list slightly to include a tribute to Tina Turner. 

Here’s Magic 103.1 just before 2 p.m. on May 28:

• Orleans, “Dance with Me”
• Firefall, “Just Remember I Love You”
• 10cc, “The Things We Do for Love”
• Tina Turner, “One of the Living”—preceded by a produced salute to Turner
• Mr. Mister, “Broken Wings”
• Pablo Cruise, “Love Will Find a Way”
• Blues Image, “Ride Captain Ride”
• Johnny Nash, “I Can See Clearly Now”
• Steely Dan, “Reelin’ in the Years”
• Tina Turner, “Better Be Good to Me”
• Daryl Hall & John Oates, “She’s Gone”
• Fleetwood Mac, “Gypsy”
• James Taylor, “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”
• Stephen Bishop, “On and On”

WEBE was giving away tickets for an upcoming Christopher Cross show. Here they are during the same hour:

• Fleetwood Mac, “Rhiannon”
• Seals & Crofts, “Summer Breeze”
• Doobie Brothers, “Real Love”
• Jay Ferguson, “Thunder Island”
• Eagles, “Life in the Fast Lane”
• Lionel Richie, “All Night Long (All Night)”
• REO Speedwagon, “Can’t Fight This Feeling”
• Michael Jackson, “Human Nature”
• Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Southern Cross”
• Ambrosia, “Biggest Part of Me”
• Chicago, “Feelin’ Stronger Every Day”
• Paul Davis, “I Go Crazy”
• Nicolette Larson, “Lotta Love”
• America, “Sister Golden Hair”

Finally, here’s 45 minutes or so of Yacht Rock Radio, starting just before 2 p.m.:

• Fleetwood Mac, “You Make Lovin’ Fun”
• Nicolette Larson, “Lotta Love”
• Atlanta Rhythm Section, “So Into You”
• Todd Rundgren, “I Saw the Light”
• Doobie Brothers, “What a Fool Believes”—part of a Michael McDonald special weekend, preceded with audio about McDonald and Kenny Loggins writing the song
• Steve Carlisle, “Theme from ‘WKRP in Cincinnati’”
• Chicago, “Baby What a Big Surprise”
• Ambrosia, “How Much I Feel”
• Chuck Mangione, “Feels So Good”
• Christopher Cross, “All Right”
• Michael McDonald, “Sweet Freedom”
• Kenny Loggins, “I Believe in Love”
• Olivia Newton-John, “Magic”
• Bobby Caldwell, “What You Won’t Do for Love”
• Steely Dan, “Peg—preceded by McDonald talking about coming to L.A. for the first time and being a Steely Dan sideman
• Robbie Dupree, “Steal Away”
• Al Stewart, “Year of the Cat”

Update.: the syndicated Retro Pop Reunion with Joe Cortese did a Yacht Rock Special as well over the holiday weekend. Their version was newer than the WTOJ and WEBE weekends, but had a different set of softer ’80s pop that isn’t officially part of the canon. Here’s Hour 2:

• Toto, “Rosanna”
• Sade, “Smooth Operator”
• Gerry Rafferty, “Baker Street”
• Grover Washington, Jr. & Bill Withers, “Just the Two of Us”
• Daryl Hall & John Oates, “You Make My Dreams”
• Wham!, “Careless Whisper”
• Commodores, “Night Shift”
• Christopher Cross, “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)”
• Fleetwood Mac, “Everywhere”
• Champaign, “How About Us”
• Doobie Brothers, “What a Fool Believes”

I did my own take on the late ’70s/early ’80s, emphasizing the hotter side of the acts discussed here, and ending up with soft rock and Yacht Rock that Really Rocks.