First Listen: Yacht Rock Vs. Soft AC

Not every market has Soft AC. After a stretch as the hot format in the late ’10s, inspired by the success of KISQ (The Breeze) San Francisco, some Soft AC stations evolved to a brighter pop-leaning Classic Hits approach, while others proved short-lived. But last August, iHeart sister WNOH Norfolk, Va., became “The Breeze.” Then in early November, it went all-Christmas, taking it from below a 1 share to a 2.6-2.9 rise in the holiday PPMs.

Almost no market has “Yacht Rock” as a full-time format (unless you’re a SiriusXM subscriber, in which case every market has it). But there have been a handful of smaller-market entries over the years, including two launches as recently as the holiday season. In fact, the body of late-’70s/early-’80s music now known as “Yacht Rock” was showing up in so many different ways that I marveled in print at how the retroactively created genre — a reminder of a not-so-great time for pop music, as it happens — was now “the hot new format.”  

On February 5, Max Media’s crosstown Mainstream AC WTWV (92.9 The Wave) rebranded as “Yacht Rock for Coastal Virginia.” In the same two months, the Wave was off 2.6-2.3, and both stations trailed WWDE (2WD), a heritage AC whose 10.9 share in August wasn’t far off from the 11.6 it had at Christmas. Through the soft AC boom, there have been stations that follow the late-’70s-through-today paradigm of The Breeze and others that are more ’70s-based gold outlets, such as KDRI (The Drive) Tucson, Ariz.

Now, Hampton Roads has both, although it doesn’t have a traditional Classic Hits station. Ironically, there was a Classic Hits battle between the same two stations in the early ’10s when iHeart launched “Magic 105.” That was the impetus for The Wave, then known as WVBW, to segue from a gold-based AC to a more focused Classic Hits. Magic 105 left the format after two years. The Wave segued back to Mainstream AC about five years later. 

During the late ’00s/early ’10s, ’70s soft rock was a significant part of AC and Classic Hits in Hampton Roads. It was one of the markets where Jimmy Buffett’s catalog went beyond “Margaritaville,” and you could hear “Southern Cross” by Crosby, Stills & Nash 30+ years later. “Yacht Rock” has always prompted the “is it a format or special weekend?” discussion. If it is indeed a format, Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Newport News is the logical first PPM market to get “Yacht Rock” on a major FM signal.

Here’s the Breeze on February 7, hosted by iHeart’s Mary Booth. One of the station’s sweepers, an extension of iHeart’s “Guaranteed Human” positioning promises “the songs that shaped your life, delivered by real people.” The Breeze plays just over 300 titles, with power rotation around 15x a week. Here’s the station just before 11 a.m.:

• Billy Joel, “My Life”
• Police, “Every Breath You Take”
• Mariah Carey, “Hero”
• REO Speedwagon, “Keep On Loving You”
• Deniece Williams, “Let’s Hear It for the Boy”
• Timbaland f/OneRepublic, “Apologize”
• Elton John, “Your Song”
• Heart, “Alone”
• Faith Hill, “This Kiss”
• Marvin Gaye, “Sexual Healing”
• Phil Collins, “You Can’t Hurry Love”
• Rihanna f/Mikky Ekko, “Stay”
• Huey Lewis & News, “If This Is It”
• Savage Garden, “Truly Madly Deeply”

One of the other issues of “Yacht Rock” as a radio format is just how many available songs there are for the format. After 4-1/2 days, Mediabase monitors show that the Wave has played some of the format’s tentpoles (“Africa,” “What You Won’t Do for Love”) 15x already. But there are also some deep “oh wows” — although after more than a decade of SXM’s Yacht Rock Radio, the line between deep cut and “hit of the genre” is blurred. 

For instance, the Wave plays Queen’s 1982 foray into the genre, “Cool Cat,” not an American radio hit at the time. As it happens, the Brazilian edition of Forbes has also launched a radio station in the last week, which leans heavily on “yacht rock” as well. It plays “Cool Cat” too. So, a canon has been created.

The other discussion about the format has always been parameters. The YouTube creators who popularized the term “yacht rock” don’t include Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville,” Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Pina Colada Song),” Al Stewart’s “Time Passages,” or Bob Welch’s “Ebony Eyes.” Most radio people do, and they probably should. Listeners experienced late-’70s/early-’80s soft-rock-dominated top 40 of a piece, and seem to call it all “yacht rock.” Also, it would be hard to do even a tight radio format without such songs.  

A few other notes on the Wave. It has a great-sounding stream, of the sort where you notice nuances in songs for the first time in 40 years. It promises breaks of “92 seconds or less,” and a lot of those ads are for the various participants in an upcoming station-sponsored job fair. Here’s the station just before 10 p.m. on February 5:

• Bee Gees, “Night Fever”
• Bobby Caldwell, “What You Won’t Do for Love”
• Chicago, “Feelin’ Stronger Every Day”
• Christopher Cross, “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)”
• Little River Band, “Lady”
• Kenny Loggins, “Forever”
• Dr. Hook, “Sharing the Night Together”
• Daryl Hall & John Oates, “Wait for Me”
• Alan Parsons Project, “Don’t Answer Me”
• America, “Ventura Highway”
• Gerry Rafferty, “Days Gone Down”
• Gilbert O’Sullivan, “Alone Again (Naturally)”
• Wham!, “Careless Whisper”
• Bob Welch, “Ebony Eyes”
• Finis Henderson, “Makin’ Love” — Early-’80s Motown R&B chart artist who has five songs on the official “yacht rock” list; a good example of a song that is both a deep cut and part of the canon.  

Here’s the station again at 1 p.m., February 9 with middayer Jen Lewis:

• George Benson, “Turn Your Love Around”
• Daryl Hall & John Oates, “It’s Uncanny”
• John Stewart, “Gold”
• Toto, “Africa”
• Little River Band, “Reminiscing”
• Al Stewart, “Time Passages”
• Sanford-Townsend Band, “Smoke From a Distant Fire”
• Seals & Crofts f/Carolyn Wills, “Get Closer”
• Christopher Cross, “All Right”
• Doobie Brothers, “Real Love”
• Firefall, “You Are the Woman”
• Stanley Clarke & George Duke, “Sweet Baby”
• England Dan & John Ford Coley, “In It for Love” — their last chart single
• Pablo Cruise, “Whatcha Gonna Do?”