Shut Yer Yacht: What Is Yacht Rock?
“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” But that’s probably Elvis Costello underselling his own aptitude for imagistic prose, as many of his own song lyrics can be poetry. As with all writing, the best music journalism isn’t just about dropping adjectives, but the kind that somehow engages the auditory imagination. More powerful than verbs are nouns.
Exhibit A: Metal, a variant of rock music so loud and dense it deserved its own particular metaphor. As a musician myself, I likewise detest the lazy pigeonholing of clearly diverse performers into a single umbrella term that absolutely has nothing to do with the music itself but by dumb connotation. Or what it is a soundtrack of, or its demographic: the world of culture teems with such terms. “Shoegaze” is one—as a post-punk genre with practitioners catatonically staring downward awash in swirls of dense guitar feedback. “Jukebox hit,” meanwhile, conjures tableaus of the drunken forlorn in grimy dives. “Big hair metal” is something everyone understands, but I doubt the members of Motley Crue and Ratt would be writing that on their resumes, nor would Lil Vert Uzi admit to performing “mumble rap.”
Which brings us to what started out as a joke. The source of the term “yacht rock” can be traced to a 2005 satirical web series with plot lines based on the soft rock hits of the late 1970s and early 1980s mostly by Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross, and Steely Dan. “Yacht” connotes luxury and escape, windswept sunset cocktails, chilled glasses raised against the glowing orange horizon. The “yacht” metaphor was a tongue-in-cheek way to describe the distinctive sheen that felt like the soundtrack to a leisurely cruise on a luxury boat. Could Cross’s “Sailing” be the main culprit?
A brief backgrounder on the milieu: America was entering its big-money chapter under Reagan, and many cultural critics believe that the emergence of yacht rock was a reaction to the Summer of Love-Woodstock of the ‘60s, when popular music stopped singing silly long songs and instead addressed social issues, an aural protest to everything that was happening around—Vietnam, civil rights, the Cold War, etc. While the ‘60s and the ‘70s looked outward with a cynical poetic eye, the era that followed was an inward stare, a celebration of the return to self, an introspection bathed in shiny vocal harmonies and rhythms and chord progressions that posed no intransigence. It was the burgeoning soundtrack to the Me decade, when the Hippie kids grew up, got haircuts and corporate jobs, and decided they liked their rock with the guitar amp turned way down and less hallucinogenic. Recording technology veered
toward the direction of smoothness, and saw the taming of the Fender Rhodes, the Yamaha DX-7, and the CP-80 Electric Grand Piano, the Oberheim, MiniMoog, ARP, the Roland Jupiter 8, the Prophet-5, and all the wired keyboard instruments that shaped the sophisticated layered lushness of AOR, or “album-oriented radio” records.
Yacht wasn’t rebelling about anything—it was inviting us all to chill, to collapse into a pool of piña colada and Valium. Yacht rock is what happens when righteous anger goes on holiday…and puts on a pair of postcoital Ray-Bans and drives to the dock in his convertible. But what is it about this particular style of pop that merits a seacraft qualifier? Why “yacht” in particular and not the rubber raft or the dinghy? Is yacht a musical style? A state of mind?
So you may hate the label, but what then do you propose? The frustratingly sterile “album oriented rock?” It’s a term that began as a format that gave disc jockeys and programmers the freedom to explore other cuts on albums instead of singles. Later on, it grew to evolve to refer to that distinctive sound from the American West Coast. But if we go by that definition, shouldn’t all progressive rock albums be considered AOR for that matter? Especially concept albums where every song is inextricably linked to the next and so forth such that it builds up to one cohesive narrative.
But, you equate: If “yacht” means “soft” rock, then you’d have an enemy in YouTube’s favorite angry old man, Rick Beato, who calls the “yacht rock” term bullshit. He claims the people pushing for the term (read: the documentary makers) are cherry-picking certain tracks just to fit their agenda because, while you may agree that the music does exude a specific kind of vibe, these bands do not share a sound. Beato argues: There is nothing soft about the outro solo of Toto’s “Rosanna” nor is there anything opulent about the drum and saxophone solo part in “Ricky Don’t Lose That Number.” His point: England Dan and John Ford Coley sound nothing like Michael McDonald or the Doobie Brothers, and it is offensive, insulting, an oversimplification, and dismissive that these amazing songwriters have devoted themselves to creating music for the aural delectation of sea-ward billionaires. “I don’t even own a yacht,” chuckled Toto guitarist Steve Lukather. And if only for his contributions to guitar history, he deserves one.
However, it is silly to presume that all yacht owners are fans of Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins. Especially in the Philippines, where I only know of two certified yacht owners who might listen to what can be considered “yacht rock.” Clue: they are both mestizos for whom boat shoes and Sperry Topsiders are not merely fashionable footwear. But the rest of these yacht owners have absolutely terrible musical taste, like many of the audiophiles in hi-fi shows. They are concerned with stuff like speaker wattage, amplifiers, vinyl stylus quality, etc, rather than what’s actually being played.
If experience is subjective, then the cultural associations of these documentaries are alien to my very own. I was already a grown man in my early 20s the first time I rode on a yacht and Steely Dan was the last thing on my mind. Prior personal memories of “yacht” had mostly jeepney rides from QC to Manila, whether on my Sony Walkman or the only one or three radio stations averse to playing “A Whole New World.” Songs by Seals and Crofts, Steely Dan, and John Ford Coley could be heard on a folk, rock, and country station, while Hall and Oates, The Doobie Brothers, Kenny Loggins songs that are neither “Danger Zone” nor “Meet Me Halfway” you could hear on 99.5 RT. I should be filing them under my own subjective category of “jeepney rock” but then again, Anakbayan has a 1971 killer of a track with the exact same title. In terms of arrangement and vibe, it has obviously nothing to do with yacht imagery. The first time I found out you could actually party on a yacht was when I saw those EDSA People Power documentaries showing a home movie of a costume party where the Marcos kids were singing “We are the World” aboard the BRP Ang Pangulo.
It’s amazing how pleasure and prestige came to be associated with something that originated from the idea of chase and speed. The word “yacht” comes from the Dutch word jacht, which means “hunt.” Originally, a jacht was a light, fast boat used by the Dutch navy in the 16th century to pursue pirates and other vessels. It was designed for quick movement rather than heavy transport, and the word itself comes from the verb jagen (“to hunt”). Over time, the design of these boats evolved from military use to recreational use.
By the 17th century, the word yacht came to refer to a vessel used for leisure, particularly by wealthy Europeans. It was in England where yachting gained strong associations with luxury and high society. The English monarchy, especially King Charles II in the 17th century, played a key role, using yachts for personal recreation, and his enthusiasm for the sport helped set the tone for the elite status it would come to symbolize.
The association of yachting with wealth and class grew throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly with the rise of private yacht clubs, such as the New York Yacht Club (founded in 1844), and the development of expensive, state-of-the-art yachts designed for leisurely cruises, races, and social events. Yachting became expensive, whether it was due to the cost of the yacht itself, maintenance, or the exclusive club membership fees. And just a random thought, here in the Philippines, there’s a brand of underwear called “YC Bikini Brief.” YC stands for “Yacht Club.” People of my generation will remember that iconic ad jingle: “YC Bikini Briefs…for the man who packs a wallop.”
As an aesthetic or even as an aspirational mood, it is no crime to embrace any aesthetic form that provides escape, spiritual or otherwise. But here’s the thing, if we are to embrace clichés and stereotypes, as the ultimate status symbol, “yacht” cannot be a connotation of anything but this: excessive opulence and almost disgusting luxury.
Mick Fleetwood once said that cocaine is God’s way of telling you’ve got too much money. A yacht is probably God’s way of reminding you’ve got waaaay too much money. Sniffing cocaine on a yacht is God saying you’ve got waaaay too much money and you’re probably an a**hole. If you’re doing it all—high-grade cocaine, supermodel escorts—on a 530-ft. superyacht with two helipads and a missile defense system, you’re probably a Russian oligarch and an a**hole.
P.S. One of the directors of the yacht rock documentary had this interesting exchange with Donald Fagen of Steely Dan:
Director: “Hello, Mr. Fagen. I…I was wondering if you’d sit down with me and talk about your music in this genre?
Fagen: “And what genre is that? “
Director: “Uh…yacht rock.”
Fagen: “Yacht rock? Well, I’ll tell you what…why don’t you go f*** yourself?”
(Phone line goes dead.)