First Listen: Yacht Rock for Actual Yacht Owners

Part of the joke of “Yacht Rock,” is goofing on the idea of poshness, including that plummy imaging voice on SiriusXM’s Yacht Rock Radio. Identifying the soft rock of the late ’70s/early ’80s as music to be enjoyed on a yacht doesn’t mean that you expect to own one. But it’s aspirational for anybody looking for sailing to take them away.

Now there’s Forbes Radio, a Sao Paolo FM frequency launched by the owners of the Brazilian edition of the well-known business magazine, and billing itself as “the first luxury radio [station] in the world.” The station is targeting those listeners for whom sailing away is indeed an option. It’s an intriguing concept: imagine WLIT (Lite FM) Chicago’s Soft AC music with Bloomberg Radio content between the songs.

So far, the between-the-songs content on Forbes Radio has largely consisted of crossplugs for the magazine and, on “The Morning Cruise,” stories from the Forbes newsroom. This morning, those included increased cybersecurity risks, greater government scrutiny of fake social-media profiles and content, and a record soybean crop — not a dry agricultural story given the related tariff issues. (Thanks to Isabel Wehr and Miami radio veteran Denny Miller for the translation help, as well Portuguese-language radio expert Eric Jon Magnunson.)

The station has also announced that Forbes Radio will have a presence this year at Rio de Janeiro Carnival. They’re promising “special programming directly from the Sambadrome, with interviews, real-time coverage, and exclusive content.” Forbes will also “take select guests from the mailing list to experience Carnival in a VIP box.” The magazine would presumably have done that anyway, but there’s now a radio-promotion aspect.

What “luxury radio” translates to musically is a lot of Yacht Rock, as well as some adjacent Soft AC, ’70s soft rock, and the R&B vocals that used to be part of Smooth Jazz stations, as well as a nice component of the ’80s R&B that crossed over everywhere except America. Forbes Radio launched in late January, just ahead of the switch from AC to “Yacht Rock at WTWV (The Wave) Norfolk, Va., the largest market convert so far, and there’s been some definite music overlap. 

Here’s Forbes Radio at 8:15 a.m., February 8:

• Tears for Fears, “Head Over Heels”
• Dennis Edwards, “Don’t Look Any Further”
• Roy Orbison, “You Got It”
• Amy Winehouse, “Love Is a Losing Game”
• Stevie Wonder, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing”
• Supertramp, “Breakfast in America”
• Phil Collins, “Take Me Home”
• Glen Campbell, “Southern Nights”
• James Taylor & J.D. Souther, “Her Town Too”
• George Benson, “On Broadway”
• Alicia Keys, “Like You’ll Never See Me Again”
• Bill LaBounty, “Look Who’s Lonely Now”
• Marc Jordan, “Marina del Rey” — a Brazilian-influenced Canadian hit in the ’70s; if there’s anywhere else it would turn up on the radio, it would be here
• Take That, “Pray”
• Richard Marx, “Now and Forever”
• Boz Scaggs, “Georgia”

Here’s Forbes Radio again just after 8 a.m., February 10:

• George Benson, “Feel Like Making Love” — the Roberta Flack hit
• Jon Secada, “Just Another Day”
• Queen, “Cool Cat” — I’d never encountered Queen’s foray into yacht rock until WTWV; now I’ve come across three spins in as many days
• Maxi Priest, “Close to You”
• Daryl Hall & John Oates, “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”
• Jamiroquai, “Blow Your Mind”
• Peter Frampton, “Baby, I Love Your Way (Live)”
• Seal, “Fly Like an Eagle”
• Earth, Wind & Fire, “Getaway”
• Christopher Cross, “Ride Like the Wind”
• Gino Vannelli, “I Just Wanna Stop”
• Lenny Kravitz, “It Ain’t Over ’Til It’s Over”
• Andy Gibb, “I Just Want to Be Your Everything”
• Stevie Wonder, “As”
• Heatwave, “Boogie Nights”
• Jon Anderson, “Hold On to Love”
• Jones Girls, “Nights Over Egypt”
• Simply Red, “Holding Back the Years”
• Jackie Wilson, “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher”
• Joey Scarbury, “Theme From The Greatest American Hero”
• Fleetwood Mac, “You Make Loving Fun”