Yacht To Go

There's a certain brand of soft rock from the late 70s and early 80s that's become infamous. It kinda rocks... but certainly not too hard. It's music cool enough that other artists came around decades later to sample its grooves... even as many modern music listeners won't even admit to liking it. Today, it's called "Yacht Rock" -- though it wasn't known that way at the time.

The birth, growth, and decline of this subgenre, along with how its moniker came to stick, is the subject of Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary, now streaming on Max. Whether you like the music ironically or genuinely, have laughed at the term or have never heard of it, were alive when the music was new or not even born until after the name "Yacht Rock" was coined -- I think you'd enjoy this short film. I watched it on a bit of a lark, and found it deeply fascinating.

The documentary begins with the creation of the 2005 web series Yacht Rock. Before the creation of YouTube, a bunch of comedians got together to dramatize (melodramatically) a fever dream soap opera explaining how so much "smooth music" of the 70s and 80s came to share the same sound: jazzy chords pushed through a pop Play-Doh Fun Factory.

As this new film interviews people involved with the making of the web series, what quickly becomes clear is that however pejorative the term Yacht Rock might sound, they actually had only reverence for the music. They explain in great detail how Steely Dan was the wellspring from which this type of music swallowed the entire L.A. music scene. As is often the case with influential pop music, superior musicians were mining traditionally black music history to bring something more sophisticated to the scene. In this case, they did it with such affection, authenticity, and success that soon black artists like George Benson and The Pointer Sisters were closing the loop.

As the documentary goes in deeper, from how "Yacht Rock" as a name was coined to a detailed analysis of the music itself, it begins interviewing the real titans of the genre. Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross, and members of Toto all appear -- and their interviews are actually fantastic. No doubt 40 years of distance from the peak of their fame has helped them find perspective, but they're all quite sanguine about their place in music history. Generally, the message is "we were making music we loved, we think it's still good music, and that's enough." Though it's also entertaining when, for example, Kenny Loggins admits that the song he expected to crap out for his sophomore slump also became a Grammy-winning mega-hit.

This truly engaging music history class covers a variety of topics, including a fun look at what isn't Yacht Rock. (Hall and Oates and Fleetwood Mac, for example.) But it's the end of the story that I found most compelling. It's no surprise that "Video Killed the Radio Star" -- the arrival of New Wave and Synth Pop, coupled with the rise of MTV, ended the dominance of what is now known as Yacht Rock. But the fatal blow from Michael Jackson's Thriller is an especially ironic conclusion to it all. As the documentary notes, most of the members of Toto actually sat in as session musicians on that mega-hit album. And one of its (many) hit singles, Human Nature, was actually written by a founding member of Toto. (And it sure sounds like Yacht Rock!) One of the biggest bands of the genre was pivotal in the genre's demise!

I was surprised at how thoroughly I enjoyed this random documentary I watched on a bit of a lark. I give Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary a B+. It's a fun little retro escape set to fun, retro music.