Playlists

Not convinced? Try this simple game. Think of ten American rock acts who debuted in the Seventies and can't be filed under punk, proto-punk, or new wave. Time's up. Who came to mind? Probably plenty who actually debuted the decade before, and if you're lucky a few of these: Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Parliament/Funkadelic, Jackson Browne, Billy Joel, Eagles, Steely Dan, Sparks, Residents, Boston, Kansas, Toto, Styx, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Van Halen (yes, the same bands with milestone reviews on this very site). Not bad, you'll say! And with more time, surely... But now try the same game with British acts: in that same handful of seconds, can't you already think of at least twice as many?

There are several reasons behind this curious amnesia. Some have to do with the cultural distance and the European reluctance toward certain typically American strands (from country to soul); others stem from the damnatio memoriae that the prevailing journalistic narrative around punk's arrival imposed on the movements that immediately preceded it – with progressive rock as the eternal scapegoat, and a whole host of other styles condemned to an even worse fate: total oblivion. On the other side of the Atlantic, historical perceptions differ, at least in part, but that didn't stop a significant chunk of that era's rock output – and of the early Eighties – from landing straight in the bargain bins just a few years after release, and staying there for nearly four decades.

The comeback

What changed things was, starting in 2005, the web series “Yacht Rock”, produced by the Los Angeles festival site Channel 101. With short episodes and a tongue-in-cheek approach, the mockumentary series produced by JD Ryznar, Hunter D. Stair and David B. Lyons began rekindling interest in a specific – yet vast – cluster of artists united by a meticulously crafted sound rooted in rock (often straddling soft- and hard-rock) but also drawing on jazz (fusion and smooth-) and soul/r’n’b, with elements borrowed from folk and, later on, even from disco music. The heroes of this new-old pantheon unearthed by the series are musicians with versatile backgrounds and remarkable instrumental personality, often elite session players whose names appear on dozens or hundreds of records: singer Michael McDonald (Doobie Brothers), guitarists Lee Ritenour and Larry Carlton, drum deities like Steve Gadd and Vinnie Colaiuta, Brazilian percussionist Paulinho Da Costa, and then David Paich, Steve Lukather and the Porcaro brothers (in short, Toto). But also artists who were front and center at the time, belonging to genres previously seen as fairly distant from one another: Kenny Loggins, Boz Scaggs, Hall & Oates (and, if you really want to stretch it, even the Michael Jackson of “Off The Wall” and “Thriller“), on the pop side Christopher Cross and Canadian Gino Vannelli in the soft-rock realm, George Benson and Al Jarreau for smooth jazz. Guiding lights, acknowledged from the very first episode and implicitly the trait-d’union between most of the names mentioned, are Steely Dan's Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, and above all their 1977 album “Aja“, a symbol of elegance and craft in blending rock, funk and jazz with refined songwriting and a sound many saw – back then and still today – as nothing short of prodigious.

These are mostly figures long familiar to fans of AOR (and especially of the so-called West Coast Sound, a category that also took in Eagles, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Carly Simon), but what came out of the web series brought them to the attention of a far larger audience. The rediscovery – or perhaps one should say invention – of the genre owes much to the effectiveness of the label and the aesthetic it evokes, which the mini-documentary series leans into heavily: a serene, laid-back life of cocktails, unbuttoned shirts, Californian sunshine and sailing trips, far removed from economic and social worries but also from contemporary anxieties about self-image and photogenic perfection at all costs. Yachts, palm trees, summer outfits, sun-drenched and semi-deserted coastal vistas do indeed abound on yacht rock album covers, but the new retrospective label has rubbed some period fans – and even some of the musicians directly involved – the wrong way. Toward the end of the documentary “Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary”, directed by Garret Price and recently released by HBO, you can hear Steely Dan's Donald Fagen deliver a scornful “go fuck yourself!” to the director over the phone: after all, linking the Californian dolce vita to a bunch of studio-nerd types like the Steely Dan crowd is a fairly obvious stretch. Then again, not even the Beach Boys – the indirect inspiration behind all the studio-mania underpinning yacht rock – ever really surfed. After all, it's rarely up to musicians to decide how the collective imagination will preserve their music, and perhaps it's worth welcoming this new, half-nostalgic, half-ironic lens with some interest, given that thanks to it a substantial treasure trove of records and songs is finally being unearthed.

The playlist

Satisfactorily exploring such a vast territory would take far more than a single playlist, and given the number of fans within OndaRock's editorial team, we hope to satisfy the curious in a more thorough way down the line. For now, eighty tracks should be more than enough for a fairly multifaceted introduction.

The opening tracks play their aces straight away, with four unavoidable names to sketch out the genre's reference sound. Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers, Toto and Christopher Cross are stylistic cornerstones that clearly highlight both the unifying traits and the distinctive personality that makes each artist in this scene unique.

"Sailing" immediately draws you in with its nautical theme and, above all, that mood halfway between carefree and melancholic which is a defining trait of the genre. Built on a downpour of major ninths and sevenths, favoured by the open D-A-D-F♯-A-D tuning, the song is an acoustic-orchestral swoon of suspension and stillness, the memory of a sunset taking shape from a memorable arpeggio and unfolding over soft, layered waves. "What A Fool Believes" is, perhaps more than any other track, the song-symbol of the fusion between white pop and r'n'b pursued by the movement. Its "Dooby bounce" — that groovy but restrained gait, marked by a light shuffle and just a touch of swing — is a signature that recurs in dozens of other yacht rock tracks (one example in this compilation is Robbie Dupree's "Steal Away", which is almost a harmonic carbon copy) and gives them a subtle but irresistible fizz, fuelled by well-balanced chromaticism and syncopation. Michael McDonald's voice, brilliant yet perpetually husky, is another presence that quickly becomes familiar to anyone exploring the genre: in the foreground or the background, he has contributed to more than two hundred releases (including recordings by such unlikely names as Elton John, Donna Summer, Wang Chung, Nik Kershaw).

On the rhythmic front, few rock drummers can boast the cult status of Jeff Porcaro of Toto. If the celebrated halftime shuffle of "Rosanna" is his most revered achievement, "Georgy Porgy" is no less iconic. With a velvety feel inspired by veterans Paul Humphrey and Earl Palmer, his behind-the-beat playing is a prime example of his extraordinary ability to craft relaxed, almost laid-back phrasing that is nonetheless incredibly propulsive.

Rounding off the opening quartet is "Hey Nineteen", the single taken from the last classic-era Steely Dan album, the impeccably polished "Gaucho" (1980). With its glistening electric Rhodes piano, a count (according to transcriptions) of as many as 25 different chords, and no real key change throughout, the track gives a sense of the level of harmonic sophistication that serves as the gold standard for the field. It also helps explain why "no campfire music" appears among the "key elements" of yacht rock identified by the label's creators: notations like "E+5/B" or "C♯7+5+9" are typically well beyond the comfort zone of your average beach guitarist.

Moving on, the tracklist takes an unexpected turn. In an attempt to offer a historical perspective absent from most of the countless other yacht rock compilations out there, it momentarily sets aside the genre's cornerstones to explore its roots. It thus revisits some early-Seventies releases in search of the distinctive traits that, combined together, would go on to give birth to the yacht sound proper. Hence Hall & Oates in their folk-leaning phase, and names like Seals & Croft, a kind of bridge between sunshine pop and white soul, among the first to combine extended harmonies, acoustic textures and vocal harmonies. Or Robert Lamm, a member of Chicago and one of the band's key songwriters, able to give their brass rock a clear, refined, Beatles-esque pop lift, in sharp contrast with the more Hendrix-inspired streak dictated by Terry Kath's guitar.

The inclusion of the Bee Gees' "Main Course" may seem ill-advised (though we'd invite you to listen to the track before judging!), but that of the Joni Mitchell of "Court And Spark" is beyond dispute: it was Christopher Cross himself who confirmed the enormous influence exerted on the movement by the songwriter's "jazz turn", as well as the great inspiration provided by her frequent use of open tunings.

The core

With figures such as Boz Scaggs, Bill LaBounty, Kenny Loggins and Stephen Bishop, we arrive at some of the most cult-revered names of the golden age of the yacht sound. The elegant, ultra-silky feel of the genre's central phase stems from an unprecedented convergence. On one hand, the songwriting skills of writers honed at the Brill Building school of Burt Bacharach, Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. On the other, the fluidity and expressive qualities of a new generation of session musicians able to draw freely on both rock and a jazz-based approach. Serving as the connecting thread, the skill and talent of a small pool of producers with an apparent Midas touch, able to make their own the insights of great studio wizards of the previous decade such as Phil Spector and George Martin: Michael Omartian, David Foster, Jay Graydon, Gary Katz (needless to say, nearly all of them involved in some capacity in the Steely Dan enterprise). Delving into yacht rock is above all a game of getting lost in the dense web formed by the careers of these protagonists, whether they're front and centre, in supporting roles, or working behind the scenes. Discovering the connections between Foster and Graydon in the Aor/power-pop sound of Airplay (with much of Toto backing them up), or pinning down the various contributions to the supremely sinuous style of Pages (from which Mister Mister would later emerge). And then there's combing through Steve Lukather's endless credits list and stumbling on the debut of future Chicago member Bill Champlin, the soundtrack to the film "Arthur" (in good company with none other than Burt Bacharach and a good chunk of this playlist's cast), and the sole album by Dane Donohue before his surprising 2024 comeback. Or, by chance, coming across two LP covers with eloquent artwork, depicted in a panel from Naoki Urasawa's manga "20th Century Boys", and rushing off to hunt down Paul Davis's "Cool Night" and Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do For Love" — thankfully now very easy to do in the streaming era.

The seductive charm of the yacht sound has also drawn in musicians with more eclectic careers, who only brought their style close to West Coast smoothness on a handful of occasions. Such is the case with power-proggers Ambrosia from 1978 onward, Billy Joel on his "52nd Street" (1978), Art Garfunkel around the time of "Watermark" (1978) and "Fate For Breakfast" (1979), and ex-Raspberries man Eric Carmen with "Change Of Heart" (1978) and "Tonight You're Mine" (1980). The dates of these flirtations show, if proof were needed, that this sound's peak exposure came at the end of the Seventies — precisely the period when, according to the alternative gospel, punk had supposedly "swept everything away" and converted the entire pop/rock industry to a new creed devoid of virtuosity and jazzy polish.

The periphery?

The string of names listed so far should have made it clear: as it has come to be canonised after the fact, yacht rock was an overwhelmingly male, white, American field. While it's undeniable that the genre's core has to do with a cluster of instrumentalists fitting that description (albeit ones in love with jazz, funk, soul and r'n'b), the narrative has largely been broadened by fans eager to expand the horizons of their musical curiosity. For one thing, yacht rock also had its share of female singer-songwriters and performers: cases in point are Nicolette Larson, Valerie Carter and Evie Sands. Secondly, the combination of influences that gave rise to the yacht sound also bore fruit in other parts of the world, sometimes under the direct influence of the American model, but often with genuinely original results.

The genre's sizeable British wing is represented here by singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke, by John Miles's "Zaragon" (1978), and by Vapour Trails, produced by Michael Omartian. As well as by the best-known and most significant of the Albion bands with West Coast leanings, America, whose sound takes on a distinct yacht flavour in the final albums of their partnership with George Martin and in the very early Eighties.

Jumping over to Australia, we find Peter Allen, whose "Bi-Coastal" was produced in Hollywood by David Foster with the help of the usual Toto crew (plus a string of other top-flight session players). Keyboardist Jakob Frímann Magnússon, meanwhile, is Icelandic, but in the late Seventies he studied music in California and got acquainted with the yacht rock crowd, recording his "Jack Magnet" in 1981 with Jeff Porcaro and Vinnie Colaiuta, as well as with legendary jazz musicians such as bassist Stanley Clarke and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.

Italy itself is not entirely immune to the trend. The most shining example is probably Alan Sorrenti, whose Italo-disco turn on "Figli delle stelle" (1977) and "L.A. & N.Y." (1979) was produced by Jay Graydon with instrumental support from David Foster, Mike Porcaro and Michael Omartian. Harder to document, but stylistically representative, are the flirtations of Fossati's "Le città di frontiera", of ace session man Alberto Radius, and of Goblin without Claudio Simonetti, all of which show how, between the Seventies and Eighties, a full-bodied yet fluid "American" sound, with a soft-rock backbone and touches of funk, r'n'b and disco, was a fashionable option on the Italian pop and singer-songwriter scene. So much so that today even foreign yacht sound enthusiasts go digging for records by Pino Daniele and by the far less well-known Mario Acquaviva (whose 1983 mini-LP features one of the earliest appearances on bass by Nicola Fasani, later better known as Faso).

The playlist alternates choices from our own country with others from outside the Anglosphere. Its yacht rock threads thus lead to French-speaking North America with Quebec's Diane Tell, and to South America with heavyweights like Charly García and Pedro Aznar's (later of the Pat Metheny Group) Serú Girán, or Marcos Valle, a key figure of Música Popular Brasileira who, on the album "Vontade De Rever Você", featured Chicago's Peter Cetera as bassist and collaborator. Then on to Scandinavia with Sweden's Edin Ådahl, Norway's Lava and Finland's Broadcast (the latter singing in English with a rather Spandau Ballet-like feel), and even beyond the Iron Curtain with Hungary's Fonograf Ensemble. Truth be told, this could just as easily extend into a long stopover in Japan: the more jazz-inflected, West Coast-leaning strand of the city pop phenomenon is, after all, nothing but a transposition of the yacht sound onto Japanese soil — if anything, even more glittering and luxurious. We refer you to OndaRock's in-depth feature for a proper exploration of a scene that, in recent times, has sparked renewed interest, not least thanks to its frequent sampling within vaporwave.

From its very first steps, moreover, the yacht rock category has also been used to label tracks and albums in the soul, r'n'b and smooth jazz spheres made by African-American artists. Even the "Yacht Rock" web series highlighted the crucial role played in the movement by James Ingram, a pop/soul voice and regular collaborator of producer Quincy Jones, an absolute touchstone for black music of the period. Indeed, it was precisely the close connections between Quincy Jones, the session players linked to Steely Dan, and smooth jazz and funk artists that had long ago prompted West Coast style enthusiasts to also take an interest in jazz musicians such as George Benson and Al Jarreau, who in those very years were bringing their own musical formula closer to pop-soul. This intersection between the West Coast sound and r'n'b was, in short, recognised by fans even before the yacht rock revival, and among the movement's cornerstones were cited Earth, Wind & Fire's "I Am" (produced by David Foster with the contribution of the usual crew) and Seawind, whose horn ensemble appears in the credits of countless yacht records.

More recently, fans and connoisseurs have coined the term “yacht soul” to describe this fusion of influences: as summed up by the dedicated Facebook group, it's music that's “smooth, well-crafted, over-produced and marked by flawless musicianship, where late-70s r&b intertwined with Aor to create the perfect blend”. Yacht soul favours synthesizers and horn sections over rock guitars, with more romantic and sensual lyrics, and an overall sound even more deeply rooted in soul, jazz and funk.

Continuation and rediscovery

The best-selling album of all time is itself a product of this blend. “Thriller” by Michael Jackson was produced by Quincy Jones in 1982 and features an extraordinary cast including James Ingram, David Foster, Jerry Hey of Seawind, Paulinho Da Costa and the full Toto lineup (“Human Nature”, included in the compilation, bears Steve Porcaro's songwriting credit). A few years later, DeBarge's “The Rhythm Of the Night” offers a further variation on this synthesis, thanks to the ultra-glossy sound crafted – among others – by Foster, Graydon, Omartian, Steve Porcaro, Paulinho Da Costa and Bill Champlin of Chicago. It's 1985, and the sound has definitely shifted: the balance between grit and polish, between sonic modernity and jazz sensibility, has begun to tip at times toward ultra-saccharine ballads, at others toward decidedly harder territory, or else toward a synth-funk that greatly amplifies the r’n’b drive. The long wave of new wave and early-80s technology also left its mark, seducing songwriters, session musicians and producers with the futuristic possibilities opened up by polyphonic super-synths like the Roland Jupiter-8 and Yamaha DX7, and by samplers such as the E-mu Emulator and Ensoniq Mirage.

In the playlist's closing tracks, it's this latter side that comes through most strongly, with contributions from David Pack of Ambrosia and from Imperials (a long-running Contemporary Christian Music band) pushing hard toward the ultra-electronic gleam of the emerging hi-tech Aor. Others, like the track from Tubes, show the flirtation working in reverse too, with artists initially associated with new wave leaning on the now-familiar pool of musicians and producers to embrace the opulence and grandeur of Aor.

The marriage of pop, rock, smooth jazz, funk, disco and soul charted a new course throughout the 1980s, largely on the other side of the Atlantic: many today recognise the affinity between the sound of Steely Dan and their acolytes and the sophisti-pop of Sade, Style Council, Simply Red and Blue Nile. Indeed, China Crisis put together “Flaunt The Imperfection” alongside Steely Dan's own Walter Becker, while British sophisti-poppers Eye To Eye brought in Gary Katz, the American band's longtime producer, to man the mixing desk. Looking closer, there's clearly more linking Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and yacht rock than just the sailboats on “Rio” and “Highly Strung”. The dandyish, telegenic look is one of the strengths of this new wave of artists, far more at ease in the MTV era than the yacht rockers who, aside from the odd (not always successful) album cover, never made their appearance a selling point.

In the States, too, the legacy of the yacht sound ran through the 1980s like an underground river, resurfacing in 1994 when Warren G and Nate Dogg's hip-hop single “Regulate” shot to the top of the charts with a prominent sample of Michael McDonald's “I Keep Forgetting” (in 1989, with less fanfare, the album “3 Feet High And Rising” had reached No. 24 on the Billboard 200 with samples of Steely Dan, Hall & Oates and Billy Joel).

The playlist doesn't explore these connections any further, nor does it delve into the now well-established revival scene that has blossomed since yacht rock came back into vogue. If “comeback” is even the right word. After all, yacht rock as a defined entity never existed before the 2000s, and the flood of compilations, web radios, events and online communities devoted to it in recent years has no real equivalent from the golden era straddling the Seventies and Eighties. In a sense, yacht rock is more a phenomenon of today than of the era of its own masterpieces: an example of retromania-driven cult worship whose temples are as much old-school vinyl dealers as social networks and podcasting platforms. The Facebook group “Yacht Rock“, founded in 2017, now counts nearly 150,000 members and averages around four thousand new posts a month. The creators of the “Yacht Rock” series launched their own podcast in 2016, “Beyond Yacht Rock“, followed in 2023 by “Yacht Or Nyacht“, in which the hosts have fun ranking songs as worthy of getting “on the boat” (i.e. sufficiently yacht) or, at the opposite extreme, as non-yacht, “nyacht”. All according to the “extremely precise” – and thoroughly tongue-in-cheek – Yachtsky Scale of their own invention.

Meanwhile, the subreddit r/Yachtrock teems with memes gently poking fun at the genre's key figures and devoted fans. Thanks to artificial intelligence, for a few months now it's even been possible to listen to (unlikely) yacht versions of Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Taylor Swift, Rush and many others.

In short, however much YouTuber Rick Beato might bristle at the supposedly derisive nature and the historical inaccuracy of the yacht rock label, it really does seem that the tag – born as a joke but now grown into an intergenerational cultural phenomenon – is sailing with the wind at its back more than ever.