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The Yacht Rock Joke Is Getting Old: Critic’s Take
The "yacht rock" label helped a new generation of listeners rediscover overlooked gems. But the music shouldn't be treated as a punchline.
Each episode traced the activities of goofy, fictionalized versions of McDonald, his contemporaries, and his collaborators — Hall & Oates love to dunk on “smooth music,” while Kenny Loggins’ character says pompous things like, “when a friend is drowning in a sea of sadness, you don’t just toss them a life vest, you swim one over to them.” Many of the tracks associated with the style are steeped in the language of 1970s R&B, conversant with Marvin Gaye ‘s intricate, tortured funk, immaculate Quincy Jones productions, and the airy, wrenching ballads Earth, Wind & Fire and the Isley Brothers scattered like birdseed across the second half of the Seventies. Steely Dan’s longtime producer Gary Katz expressed a similar disinterest in the yacht rock label — albeit using less-colorful language — this summer during an interview with the music manager Scott Barkham in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
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