Yacht Rock a Dockumentary

superchuck500 said
So this is a fascinating issue - and I think we have to start with the history of the term "yacht rock" itself. While the musical sub-genre took place from the mid-70s to the early 80s - the term yacht rock didn't come about until the mid 2000s. It's hard to know its very original use, but the first documented use is in the series "Yacht Rock" (with Hollywood Steve) that some LA area film students produced and posted online. I posted episode 1 above and was familiar with it back then (2005 ish).

What this means is that the whole notion of yacht rock developed organically 25 or so years later based on what a bunch of songs from an era share stylistically. Yes, there's some genuine basis to attribute it to a sort of smooth, yuppy-ish, slightly jazzy sound to a boating vibe - but it's that specific sound and production value that defines yacht rock and not necessarily hard swim lanes about specific artists, or even dates.

I totally get that Yacht Rock is a manufactured term that came about way after the heyday of that type of music.. it’s funny, i remember you and i having a discussion on here about YR circa 2007 i think, not long after id signed up for this site (i think i had a different user name ) and before you and I realized we actually knew each other in real life lol .. i do think it’s organic b/c anytime someone first hears the term Yacht Rock , anyone who was alive back then and owned a radio totally gets exactly what it means .

superchuck500 said
Steely Dan, for example, definitely made some yacht rock. The Aja album has Deacon Blues, Black Cow, and Babylon Sister and are as yachty as rock gets. But most of the Steely Dan earlier catalog is not . . . not only because the timing isn't right but the sound/style isn't right. Aja came out in 1977, when the yacht rock sound was well underway, but there's probably examples of genuine yacht rock before that. Also, I think the genuine era was short, by about 1981, the real stuff was mostly over.

BUT all this means there's ample room for debate.

Yeah there’s some room for debate b/c for some reason i cant associate Steely Dan with Yacht Rock as easily as maybe some other people can.. i still havent a had a chance yet to check out the doc and maybe ill feel differently after viewing it, and yes Stelly Dan’s music has a very mellow vibe for some reason, for me it just hits different than YR does … i do think that 1977 is too early for YR, it’s really 1978-1982 for me .. interestingly , on the Sirius XM Yacht Rock channel’s intros and outros between songs they mention exactly two cities- Marina del Rey and Siesta Key- and i have in my life resided in both places ! So i guess i was meant to be a yacht rocker .