The perfect time to listen to Yacht Rock music is mid-Summer! Many critics compare Yacht Rock to Easy Listening music, but I would argue the quality of Yacht Rock music is a cut above. Some consider Steely Dan’s music of the 1970s the beginning of Yacht Rock. There’s no doubt that Michael McDonald is a key player in the genre. The same goes for Kenny Loggins.
The groups most closely associated with Yacht Rock music are Toto, Poco, Pablo Cruise, 10cc, Chicago, REO Speedwagon, and Air Supply.
Are you a fan of Yacht Rock? Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here? GRADE: B+ (for both)
TRACK LIST YACHT ROCK 1:
| A1 | Chuck Mangione– | Feels So Good Written-By – Chuck Mangione | 3:30 |
| A2 | Toto– | Africa Written-By – David Paich, Jeffrey Porcaro* | 4:23 |
| A3 | Kenny Loggins– | This Is It Written-By – Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald | 3:37 |
| A4 | Little River Band– | Cool Change Written-By – Glenn Shorrock | 4:49 |
| B1 | Peter Frampton– | Baby, I Love Your Way (Live) Written-By – Peter Frampton | 4:41 |
| B2 | Player (4)– | Baby Come Back Written-By – J.C. Crowley, Peter Beckett | 4:01 |
| B3 | Looking Glass– | Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl) Written-By – Elliot Lurie | 3:06 |
| B4 | Rupert Holmes– | Escape (The Piña Colada Song) Written-By – Rupert Holmes | 4:34 |
| C1 | Bobby Caldwell– | What You Won’t Do For Love Written-By – Alfons Kettner, Bobby Caldwell | 4:45 |
| C2 | Climax Blues Band– | Couldn’t Get It Right Written-By – Colin Cooper, Derek Holt, John Cuffley, Pete Haycock, Richard Jones (10) | 3:18 |
| C3 | Ace (7)– | How Long Written-By – Paul Carrack | 3:21 |
| C4 | Gino Vannelli– | I Just Wanna StopWritten-By – Ross Vannelli | 3:37 |
| C5 | Dave Mason– | We Just Disagree Written-By – Jim Krueger | 3:01 |
| D1 | Poco (3)– | Crazy Love Written-By – Rusty Young | 2:51 |
| D2 | The Ozark Mountain Daredevils– | Jackie Blue Written-By – Larry M. Lee*, Steve Cash | 3:34 |
| D3 | Pablo Cruise– | Love Will Find A Way Written-By – Cory Lerios, David Jenkins | 4:08 |
| D4 | 10cc– | I’m Not In Love Written-By – Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman | 3:43 |
| D5 | Dan Fogelberg– | Longer Written-By – Dan Fogelberg | 3:14 |
TRACK LIST YACHT ROCK 2:
| A1 | Kenny Loggins Featuring Stevie Nicks– | Whenever I Call You “Friend”Written-By – Kenny Loggins, Melissa Manchester |
| A2 | Michael McDonald– | I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near) Written-By – Ed Sanford, Jerry Leiber, Michael McDonald, Mike Stoller |
| A3 | Gerry Rafferty– | Baker Street Written-By – Gerry Rafferty |
| A4 | Chicago (2)– | If You Leave Me Now Written-By – Peter Cetera |
| B1 | REO Speedwagon– | Keep On Loving You Written-By – Kevin Cronin |
| B2 | Air Supply– | All Out Of Love Written-By – Clive Davis, Graham Russell (2) |
| B3 | Eric Carmen– | All By Myself Written-By – Eric Carmen |
| B4 | Paul Davis (3)– | I Go Crazy Written-By – Paul Davis (3) |
| B5 | Toto– | I’ll Be Over You Written-By – Randy Goodrum, Steve Lukather |
| C1 | Little River Band– | Reminiscing Written-By – Graham George Goble* |
| C2 | Seals & Crofts– | Summer Breeze Written-By – Dash Crofts, James Seals |
| C3 | Gordon Lightfoot– | Sundown Written-By – Gordon Lightfoot |
| C4 | Elvin Bishop– | Fooled Around And Fell In Love Written-By – Elvin Bishop |
| D1 | Atlanta Rhythm Section– | So Into You Written-By – Perry Carlton Buie*, Dean Daughtry, Robert Lafayette Nix* |
| D2 | Walter Egan– | Magnet And Steel Written-By – Walter Egan |
| D3 | Exile (7)– | Kiss You All Over (1986 Version) Written-By – Michael Chapman*, Nicky Chinn |
| D4 | Captain And Tennille– | Love Will Keep Us Together Written-By – Howard Greenfield, Neil Sedaka |
| D5 | Santana– | Hold On Written by Ian Thomas |
I like a number of the songs here—What You Won’t Do for Love, Love Will Find A Way, Whenever I Call You Friend, I Keep Forgetting, Keep on Loving You, and Sundown—but the choice of songs seems rather random. For the most part, this would be music I would play at a low volume during a dinner party.
Deb, I starting to think you’re a Yacht Rocker!
Strange selection!
Most of the performers I never hheard about – but then one of my favourite Chicago songs???
And of course you can always listen to Santana – but the others?
Wolf, believe it or not, Chicago–the still living members–perform in Lewiston, NY this weekend!
Some of these have a high nostalgic quotient for me, like “Summer Breeze,” “Brandy,” “Crazy Love” . . . nostalgia of course meaning you have a highly selective memory of your life then. Whoever coined the term “Yacht Rock” should be sentenced to Purgatory.
Fred, “Yacht Rock” is a odd term, but Sirius/XM Radio has a couple of Yacht Rock channels.
Yeah, George, even by the Very Loose definitions of “yacht rock”, this is pushing the limits of anything meaningful. Jazz-Rock fusion such as Mangione’s cheek by jowl with pure inanity such as “The Piña Colada Song” and similar smarm such as “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” and then back to decent love songs (and their neighbors on soft-rock and MOR (as in “middle of the road”) radio formats really does spell a formula aimed at the generations who were less likely to sit still, or in their moving cars, for the 101 Strings. Plenty of not-bad to good songs/pieces here (the Mangione isn’t a song), but the others drag them down for me, certainly (and so far for the other commenters.)
As my cousin (several hundred times removed) Dave Mason puts it in his mediocre song, on this “We Just Disagree”…it’s MOR rock and similar music, which got that semi-witty tag to try to ennoble it. (Even as MOR used to mean pop singers such as Sinatra and Tony Bennett and Peggy Lee and such, maybe going as “far out” as, say, Carly Simon’s most un-jarring hits to those who liked that kind of music…but just as with the 101 Strings and their competitors/peers, generations shift in what kind of Muzak they’ll take without complaint.
Todd, Middle Of the Road music crashed and burned here in the 1990s. Our “Easy Listening” radio stations were bought up and turned into Talk Radio stations–mostly conservative.
Indeed, Salem (curiously witch-trial redolent) bought up as many marginal stations as it could to spew right-wing hissery…
Somebody’s list of their favorite ’60s “easy listening” music–if EL stations of the ’70s had playlists like this I wouldn’t’ve run away from my parents’ auditing them nearly so much (this selection includes a fair amount of jazz hits, for example): https://open.spotify.com/album/77EBRctep6ySLzgJs1wdD1
Instead, the stations in question leaned heavily toward the Percy Faith Orchestra and the aforementioned 101 Strings and their lesser(!) competitors, likewise the Ray Conniff Singers and their lesser imitations.
Todd, I’m a fan of Ray Conniff and his Singers. When I’m in the mood, I play one of his CDs and my mood always improves!
Sadly, though, less-talented vocal groups flourished on Difficult Listening stations/that general market…Muzak and its competitors, mostly, some record sales.
Todd, the only time I hear Muzak today is in an elevator. It’s disappeared from Western NY airwaves.
Todd, the songs on these CDs got heavy rotation on radio back in the day.
I’m certainly aware. Where I learned to like, hate or be indifferent to them. Love a few.
Todd, for me, Steely Dan is the cream of the Yacht Rock genre.
Yeah, there are a lot of things you’d hear on the 70s channel on Sirius XM, or The Bridge. There is no such thing as Yacht Rock, I keep telling you. It’s a modern construct that has no basis in historical reality.
As for the songs, a little too mellow in some cases. I do like some of them. As a matter of fact, we’re seeing Michael McDonald with The Doobie Brothers over the weekend. I don’t consider their music Yacht Rock by any means.
“Yacht rock” is indeed a packaging term, one which is trying to ride on easy irony and nostalgia, and sell albums with “The Piña Colada Song” to those tolerant of sand in their soup. I hope none of these ran you more $2 a disc, George!
Todd, most of the used music CDs I buy are a dollar…or less.
Jeff, I agree with you: Yacht Rock is a marketing term to repackage this kind of music.
I truly thought it was deja vu or sleepwalking until I realized two days ago it was a documentary on the subject. I know a few of these and would probably know more if I heard them but this is background music to me.
Patti, Yacht Rock could be another term for “Background Music.”
Yacht rock was coined in 2005, according to Wikipedia. It’s basically “soft rock”, or as we call it, Lite-FM (or Light FM).
Jeff, I like the term “soft rock” even less than “Yacht Rock.”
Well, at least “soft rock” gets at the nature of the music so-labeled…
Todd, “soft rock” is about as accurate as Soft Scrub.
For me, Yacht Rock makes as much sense as a genre as Neo-Retro Doorknob Ska.
Hey, Jerry, don’t knock it (or twist it) till you try it…such as the Specials’ “(This Knob Turning Like a) Ghost Knob”…
Jerry, what ever happened to SKA? It enjoyed a brief moment…and puff, it was gone!
A ska revival in the latter ’70s…ska first popped up in Jamaica in the mid ”60s, and helped give birth to reggae. The more jazz-loving punks took to ska, and there are still ska bands about, if not much on charts. Here’s a smattering:
“Jamaican Ska” by Byron Lee and the Dragonaires (1964): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt10udQEK1k
“Freeze Up” by Operation Ivy (released in 1989): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPLOkJcHZks
“A Message for You, Rudy” The Specials (1979 over version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cntvEDbagAw
“Tears of a Clown” The Beat (soon known as The English Beat) 1979 cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1OVYFNUZT8
“Ranking Full Stop” The English Beat (1979): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05JUMJrTwwg
“Spy Market” Let’s Go Bowling (1998 ): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVMxXVOYteM
The last track of my post awaiting moderation (multiple links) is an example of latter-day frat-ska. Not exactly a limning of what ska can be, but some samples, the comment.
Yacht Rock to me is just summer music.
I know and love almost all of these and they all take me right back to those bygone days.
Two songs that aren’t included but should be are Robert Palmer’s Every Kinda People and Poco’s Heart of the Night
Beth, Yacht Rock = Summer Music works for me! Love Poco’s “Heart of the Night”!