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.
A suggestion from one of your younger readers, which might be very difficult to accomplish but which would be such an interesting topic.
I’d love for you to analyze rock radio (Alt and maybe Active?)’s 2000s “gold” tracks and see what percentage of them fit into what I like to call the “Seven Pillars” of 2000s rock:
1. Post-grunge (Nickelback, Creed, 3 Doors Down, etc.)
2. Nu-metal (Linkin Park, Disturbed, Korn, etc.)
3. Pop punk (Green Day, Blink-182, Fall Out Boy, etc.)
4. Adult alternative (Coldplay, Matchbox 20, Train, etc.)
5. Garage rock revival (White Stripes, Strokes, Jet, etc.)
6. Post-punk revival (Killers, Kings of Leon, Franz Ferdinand, etc.)
7. Indie rock/p4kcore (Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, etc.)
It would be interesting because these “pillars” had such big yet disparate fanbases – well, maybe Pillars 1 & 2 overlap a bit and 5 & 6 overlap a bit more – and thus there was no consensus about what the prevailing sound of 2000s rock was. What has radio determined the lasting sound of 2000s rock to be?
That’s an interesting idea. Thanks.
Just for fun, and to show you how maddening these exercises can be, I’m already going through the list and dividing the piles slightly differently because:
* I put Puddle of Mudd and Papa Roach and even Trapt with Linkin Park. I put Disturbed with Avenged Sevenfold!
* I’d probably put Franz Ferdinand in the garage rock pile because they kept their rock cred. Killers really go in the garage rock pile too but their profile as a band is more like KOL these days.
* Coldplay feels like a different pile from Matchbox 20/Train. I put them with Snow Patrol/Keane/etc., But modern AC 90s and modern AC 00s are perhaps just different because one has had more time to be adopted by Lite-FM AC.
Really, you could put a lot of 5/6/7 in one bucket called “True.Alt,” although some are truer than others. The Active stuff–music mostly abandoned by Alt now except for Linkin Park–is another set. Pop/punk, the unifier, is in the middle. My sense is that’s the music that has best endured on Alt radio.
Curious what your take is on iHeart’s dedicated Yacht Rock station? How does it compare?
Making a note to listen, thanks!
Listening right now. Like the others, it’s a mix of things that the creators count as “Yacht Rock” (“Jojo” by Boz Scaggs), things they don’t (“Hotel California” gets one of their lowest ratings, too), and some things that seem to count but on which no judgment has been issued (“Sara Smile”). Again, most listeners would regard them as of a piece, and the slug line “’70s and ’80s smooth soft rock” explains it all well enough.
Not only are there enough songs for a weekend, there are enough for a format- if you are willing to expand to about a 25 year range from 1968-1993. We’ve run like that on KTSO Tulsa for the last two and a half years and were #2 W35+ in March. Not bad for a Class A signal in an over-saturated market. Soft and Smooth, centered on 1978-1983 but with concentric circles out 10 years either side makes for a really fun station that all ages enjoy. It may not be the first choice for a Class C if a “regular” format hole is there, but for a small over-achiever station- it’s been a home-run.
Hi, Bob! Due for another listen!
Sean,
I read with interest your recent observations of the Yacht Rock format. I’ve found that there many variations of it available from Sirius Xm, Pandora. Spotify, AccuRadio, Internet Stations, etc. Most have a 1970‘s – 80‘s set of titles.
I was a regular listener of “The Wow Factor” in Phoenix till it got geo-fenced and was not available anymore. I also liked “The Drive” in Tucson. Both gave you something different to listen to. I tried Yacht Rock, but I thought something was missing.
Before I go any further, let me explain that I left the radio business in 1988. I was part of the business from the 1960‘s through the late 1980‘s. I got to be a jock, music director, program director, sales rep, and finally general manager. I left the business because wasn’t as fun anymore. Corporate radio was just around the corner. I still love radio today, but now it has no excitement. Every station sounds the same only the music format is different.
I have a rather extensive music collection, so I decided to create my own derivation of Yacht Rock which I happen to call “Patio Rock.” Program and Music Directors are going to say “you can’t do that” with the number of titles in my format. How about 2280? (18 – from the 1950‘s. 415 from the 1960‘s, 1305 from the 1970‘s. 532 from the 1980‘s, and 10 from the 1990‘s.)
Why the Patio Rock name? Because all the songs are loaded on my computer’s Winamp Player set up on shuffle and crossfade. I play it through my stereo system with speakers on my patio.
The neighbors love it. I aim the music toward a 45+ listener. Good music is still good music even if it’s old. Just make sure it blends right.
I like to have a lot of variety so playlist doesn’t repeat itself for days and days. All the titles reached top 40 for the year it was popular in. I’ve inserted some album versions and extended versions to break things up. I don’t have to worry about quarter hours and cume anymore. I feel good when somebody says “Man I haven’t heard that song in a long time!”
Here’s a sample of a couple hours of music.
Rickie Lee Jones – Chuck E’s In Love
Marvin Gaye – Trouble Man
Eric Clapton -Tulsa Time
Linda Ronstadt – I Knew You When
Carpenters – Sing
B.J. Thomas – Don’t Worry Baby
Spencer Davis Group – Gimme Some Lovin’
Bachman Turner Overdrive – Hey You
Randy Van Warmer – Just When I Needed You Most
Dolly Parton – Starting Over Again
Chicago – Colour My World
Neil Diamond – Song Sung Blue
Jonathan Edwards – Sunshine
Vicki Lawrence – The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia
Roberta Flack & Donnie Hathaway – Where Is The Love
Billy Joel – You May Be Right
Paul Mc Cartney and Wings – Jet
Barry Manilow – Trying To Get The Feeling Again
Duprees – My Own True Love
Hall & Oates – You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’
Johnny Rivers – Help Me Rhonda
Stevie Wonder – Isn’t She Lovely
Giorgio Moroder – Son Of My Father
Carly Simon – The Right Thing To Do
Elvis Presley – Memories
Gunhill Road – Back When My Hair Was Short
KC And The Sunshine Band – That’s The Way I Like It
Mike And The Mechanics – All I Need
Christopher Cross – Ride Like The Wind
Jennifer Warnes – I Know A Heartache When I See One
Who – Squeeze Box
Casinos – The You Can Tell Me Goodbye
Beach Boys – Don’t Worry Baby
Paul Young – Every Time You Go Away
Crests – Sixteen Candles
Paul Simon – Slip Slidin’ Away
For what it’s worth, I’m finding Yacht Rock on SiriusXM to be more disappointing than ever this year. Way too many unfamiliar/”deep cuts” to listen to.