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The 20 greatest yacht rock songs ever, ranked

27 July 2022, 17:50

By Tom Eames

We can picture it now: lounging on a swish boat as it bobs along the water, sipping cocktails and improving our tan. Oh, and it's the 1980s.

There's only one style of music that goes with this image: Yacht rock.

What is Yacht Rock?

Also known as the West Coast Sound or adult-oriented rock, it's a style of soft rock from between the late 1970s and early 1980s that featured elements of smooth soul, smooth jazz, R&B, funk, rock and disco.

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Although its name has been used in a negative way, to us it's an amazing genre that makes us feel like we're in an episode of Miami Vice wearing shoulder pads and massive sunglasses.

Here are the very best songs that could be placed in this genre:

Player - 'Baby Come Back'

Player - Baby Come Back

Not the reggae classic of the same name, this 1977 track was Player's biggest hit.

After Player disbanded, singer Peter Beckett joined Australia's Little River Band, and he also wrote 'Twist of Fate' for Olivia Newton-John and 'After All This Time' for Kenny Rogers.

Steely Dan - 'FM'

It's tough just choosing one Steely Dan song for this list, but we've gone for this banger.

Used as the theme tune for the 1978 movie of the same name, the song is jazz-rock track, though its lyrics took a disapproving look at the genre as a whole, which was in total contrast to the film's celebration of it. Still, sounds great guys!

Bobby Goldsboro - 'Summer (The First Time)'

Bobby Goldsboro - Summer (The First Time)

A bit of a questionable subject matter, this ballad was about a 17-year-old boy’s first sexual experience with a 31-year-old woman at the beach.

But using a repeating piano riff, 12-string guitar, and an orchestral string arrangement, this song just screams yacht rock and all that is great about it.

Kenny Loggins - 'Heart to Heart'

Kenny Loggins - Heart To Heart (Official Music Video)

If Michael McDonald is the king of yacht rock, then Kenny Loggins is his trusted advisor and heir to the throne.

This track was co-written with Michael, and also features him on backing vocals. The song is about how most relationships do not stand the test of time, yet some are able to do so.

Airplay - 'Nothing You Can Do About It'

Nothin' You Can Do About It

You might not remember US band Airplay, but they did have their moment on the yacht.

Consisting of David Foster (who also co-wrote the Kenny Loggins song above), Jay Graydon and the brilliantly-named Tommy Funderburk, this tune was a cover of a Manhattan Transfer song, and was a minor hit in 1981.

Boz Scaggs - 'Lowdown'

Boz Scaggs - Lowdown (Official Audio)

We've moved slightly into smooth jazz territory with this track, which is guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

The song was co-written by David Paich, who would go on to form Toto along with the song's keyboardist David Paich, session bassist David Hungate, and drummer Jeff Porcaro.

Steve Winwood - 'Valerie'

Steve Winwood - Valerie (Official Video)

This song is probably as far as you can get into pop rock without totally leaving the yacht rock dock.

Legendary singer-songwriter Winwood recorded this gong about a man reminiscing about a lost love he hopes to find again someday.

Eric Prydz later sampled it in 2004 for the house number one track ‘Call on Me’, and presented it to Winwood, who was so impressed he re-recorded the vocals to better fit the track.

Toto - 'Rosanna'

Toto - Rosanna (Official HD Video)

We almost picked 'Africa' , but we reckon this tune just about pips it in the yacht rock game.

Written by David Paich, he has said that the song is based on numerous girls he had known.

As a joke, the band members initially played along with the common assumption that the song was based on actress Rosanna Arquette, who was dating Toto keyboard player Steve Porcaro at the time and coincidentally had the same name.

Chicago - 'Hard to Say I'm Sorry'

Chicago - Hard To Say I'm Sorry (Official Music Video)

Chicago began moving away from their horn-driven soft rock sound with their early 1980s output, including this synthesizer-filled power ballad.

• The 10 greatest Chicago songs, ranked

The album version segued into a more traditional Chicago upbeat track titled ‘Get Away’, but most radio stations at the time opted to fade out the song before it kicked in. Three members of Toto played on the track. Those guys are yacht rock kings!

Michael Jackson - 'Human Nature'

Michael Jackson - Human Nature (Audio)

A few non-rock artists almost made this list ( George Michael 's 'Careless Whisper' and Spandau Ballet 's 'True' are almost examples, but not quite), yet a big chunk of Thriller heavily relied on the yacht rock sound.

Michael Jackson proved just how popular the genre could get with several songs on the album, but 'Human Nature' is the finest example.

The Doobie Brothers - 'What a Fool Believes'

The Doobie Brothers - What A Fool Believes (Official Music Video)

Possibly THE ultimate yacht rock song on the rock end of the spectrum, and it's that man Michael McDonald.

Written by McDonald and Kenny Loggins, this was one of the few non-disco hits in America in the first eight months of 1979.

The song tells the story of a man who is reunited with an old love interest and attempts to rekindle a romantic relationship with her before discovering that one never really existed.

Michael Jackson once claimed he contributed at least one backing track to the original recording, but was not credited for having done so. This was later denied by the band.

Christopher Cross - 'Sailing'

Christopher Cross - Sailing (Official Audio)

We're not putting this in here just because it's called 'Sailing', it's also one of the ultimate examples of the genre.

Christopher Cross reached number one in the US in 1980, and VH1 later named it the most "softsational soft rock" song of all time.

Don Henley - 'The Boys of Summer'

The Boys Of Summer DON HENLEY(1984) OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO

Mike Campbell wrote the music to this track while working on Tom Petty’s Southern Accents album, but later gave it to Eagles singer Don Henley, who wrote the lyrics.

The song is about the passing of youth and entering middle age, and of a past relationship. It was covered twice in the early 2000s: as a trance track by DJ Sammy in 2002, and as a pop punk hit by The Ataris in 2003.

England Dan and John Cord Foley - 'I'd Really Love to See You Tonight'

England Dan & John Ford Coley - I'd Really Love To See You Tonight.avi

A big hit for this duo in 1976, it showcases the very best of the sock rock/AOR/yacht rock sound that the 1970s could offer.

Dan Seals is the younger brother of Jim Seals of Seals and Crofts fame. Which leads to...

Seals & Crofts - 'Summer Breeze'

Summer Breeze - Seals & Croft #1 Hit(1972)

Before The Isley Brothers recorded a slick cover, 'Summer Breeze' was an irresistible folk pop song by Seals & Crofts.

While mostly a folk song, its summer vibes and gorgeous melody make for a perfect yacht rock number.

Christopher Cross - 'Ride Like the Wind'

Ride Like The Wind Promo Video 1980 Christopher Cross

If Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins are in charge of the yacht rock ship, then Christopher Cross has to be captain, right? Cabin boy? Something anyway.

The singer was arguably the biggest success story of the relatively short-lived yacht rock era, and this one still sounds incredible.

Eagles - 'I Can't Tell You Why'

The eagles - I can't tell you why (AUDIO VINYL)

Many Eagles tunes could be classed as yacht rock, but we reckon their finest example comes from this track from their The Long Run album in 1979.

Don Henley described the song as "straight Al Green", and that Glenn Frey, an R&B fan, was responsible for the R&B feel of the song. Frey said to co-writer Timothy B Schmit: "You could sing like Smokey Robinson . Let’s not do a Richie Furay, Poco-sounding song. Let’s do an R&B song."

Gerry Rafferty - 'Baker Street'

Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street (Official Video)

Gerry Rafferty probably didn't realise he was creating one of the greatest yacht rock songs of all time when he wrote this, but boy did he.

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With the right blend of rock and pop and the use of the iconic saxophone solo, you can't not call this yacht rock at its finest.

Michael McDonald - 'Sweet Freedom'

Michael McDonald - Sweet Freedom (1986)

If you wanted to name the king of yacht rock, you'd have to pick Michael McDonald . He could sing the phone book and it would sound silky smooth.

Possibly his greatest solo tune, it was used in the movie  Running Scared , and its music video featured actors Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines.

Hall & Oates - 'I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)'

Daryl Hall & John Oates - I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) (Official Video)

This duo knew how to make catchy hit after catchy hit. This R&B-tinged pop tune was co-written with Sara Allen (also the influence for their song 'Sara Smile').

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John Oates has said that the song is actually about the music business. "That song is really about not being pushed around by big labels, managers, and agents and being told what to do, and being true to yourself creatively."

Not only was the song sampled in De La Soul's 'Say No Go' and Simply Red 's 'Home', but Michael Jackson also admitted that he lifted the bass line for 'Billie Jean'!

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Top 100 Greatest Yacht Rock Songs of All Time

Yacht Rock, a term that has steadily grown in popularity, refers to the smooth, groovy rock music of the '70s and '80s that has been popularized over the recent years. Initially categorized as soft rock or adult contemporary, Yacht Rock places a stronger emphasis on the groove rather than the lyrics, making it some of the easiest and catchiest easy listening music for many rock fans. Interestingly, nearly all Yacht Rock songs were created 35-40 years before the genre was officially recognized as its own distinct style, leaving room for interpretation about what exactly qualifies as Yacht Rock. For our criteria, we analyzed the entire catalog of Sirius XM Yacht Rock Radio alongside Spotify and Apple Music’s Yacht Rock playlists and ranked the songs accordingly. Each song included has been deemed Yacht Rock by at least one of these sources and was scored against all other entries. Some songs may rank higher in a broader rock or soft rock sphere, but here are what we have deemed to be the 100 Greatest Yacht Rock Songs of All Time complete with a playlist of all 100 Songs . For a broader list across at songs across the rock realm, be sure to check out the Top 200 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time .

1. What a Fool Believes - The Doobie Brothers

Deemed almost unanimously as the quintessential Yacht Rock tune by the few publications that have taken the time to dive into this same endeavor , What a Fool Believes  stands out as one of the grooviest rock tunes to ever achieve mainstream success. Featuring the quintessential Yacht Rock vocalist, Michael McDonald, the song topped charts across North America and became one of the most recognizable and frequently played songs of the '70s. Michael McDonald, who joined The Doobie Brothers in 1975, had become the band's primary vocalist by the release of Minute by Minute  in 1978, which houses What a Fool Believes . With this album marking a new sound for the band, especially following the temporary health-related departure of Tom Johnston, the band's new sound was polished to perfection, a dramatic shift from the Toulouse Street  sound of the early part of the decade. Nevertheless, What a Fool Believes  is a serious earworm, a critically "perfect" pop-rock song, if you will, and a song that reinvented The Doobie Brothers.

2. Peg   - Steely Dan

One of the most talented groups on our list, if not the most talented, Steely Dan transcended the typical confines of Yacht Rock during their initial ten-year run. Covering genres from Yacht Rock to jazz rock, progressive rock, and funk rock, Steely Dan captivated audiences uniquely throughout the '70s and early '80s. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen consistently collaborated with the world's finest studio musicians, producing albums of perfectionist caliber. Within the realm of Yacht Rock, Peg  takes their top spot, ranking just behind What a Fool Believes  in the genre. Once again, Michael McDonald provides backing vocals, harmonizing behind Donald Fagen and Paul Griffin. The silky smooth vocals paired with top-notch instrumentals make Peg  a standout track. Furthermore, Aja , the album that houses Peg , is one of the most impressive American albums of all time , beyond its Yacht Rock appeal.

3. Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)   - Looking Glass

Released in 1972, the one-hit wonder by Looking Glass, Brandy , established a much bigger name for itself than the band ever managed to achieve on its own. As one of the smoothest and catchiest songs of the ‘70s, Brandy  consistently appears on nearly every Yacht Rock, adult contemporary, or easy listening playlist available. The song tells a melancholic tale that is open to interpretation, though it is generally understood to describe an attractive bartender based in Northern New Jersey. Featuring catchy harmonies, clean soft guitar, and subtle horn use, what's not to love about this song?

4. Sailing   - Christopher Cross

If it were up to us at Melophobe, the "Yacht Rock Crown" would go to San Antonio’s own Christopher Cross. Although Cross really shined with just his first two studio albums before his later releases (post-1983) fell into obscurity, his early work still grabs all the attention. From his self-titled debut album, Sailing  stands out as a top ten hit that's the epitome of Yacht Rock. Interestingly, the term "yacht rock" itself is often linked right back to this song. His debut album is loaded with iconic tunes in this style, with Sailing  rightfully taking its place at the forefront.

5. Escape (The Pi ñ a Colada Song)  - Rupert Holmes

The second tune in our top ten that found its way onto one of the three Guardians of the Galaxy  soundtracks—as well as its original LP release—comes from yacht rock icon Rupert Holmes. Escape (The Piña Colada Song)  tells a story that feels more comical today than it might have in the ‘70s, describing a personal ad in search of a like-minded, carefree, fun-loving companion. Beyond the quirky lyrics, the sounds of crashing waves and clean guitars have turned the tune into a timeless earworm, cementing its status as a yacht rock masterpiece long before the term even existed. Guardians of the Galaxy  wasn't just a great series for action lovers; who would've guessed its soundtrack would become almost as iconic as the movies themselves?

6. Lowdown  - Boz Scaggs

Part of the same studio musician collective that worked with Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs hit major commercial success in 1976 with the release of his richly decorated album Silk Degrees . Boz Scaggs found success as one of the few artists to achieve substantial mainstream success in the jazz rock world aside from Steely Dan, with both artists utilizing many of the same studio musicians. Released from Silk Degrees , the standout yacht rock tune is Lowdown , a tightly produced masterpiece. Similar to Christopher Cross, Boz's peak in the mainstream was relatively brief, with his fame primarily anchored to Silk Degrees  and sporadic airplay of his other songs over about a decade.

7. Come and Get Your Love  - Redbone

Yet another tune from the Guardians of the Galaxy  soundtracks to make our top ten is Come and Get Your Love , released in 1975 by the swamp rock band Redbone. While often labeled as a one-hit-wonder, Redbone actually scored another American top 40 hit in 1971 and enjoyed scattered success in the R&B scene throughout the '70s. Come and Get Your Love  has since been celebrated as one of the greatest pop songs of the '70s and also managed to somewhat subtly tap into the disco craze of the era.

8. Margaritaville  - Jimmy Buffett

The question of whether Jimmy Buffett fits into the yacht rock category has stirred some debate lately, with the answer remaining somewhat unclear since the term itself is still relatively new. Most agree that Buffett's music is in a category of its own, but there are still those who argue that his unique sound has a place within yacht rock. Regardless, Margaritaville  and a few other Buffett tunes are staples on yacht rock radio stations, so we've deemed them eligible. Buffett's music embodies a carefree lifestyle that mirrors the feel and attitude of yacht rock. His iconic song Margaritaville  instantly puts listeners in a vacation mindset, a unique characteristic that has garnered it extensive praise and airplay over the years. The passing of Jimmy Buffett, an American legend, touched the hearts of many.

9. Africa  - Toto

The first track from the 1980s to make our top ten is Africa  from Toto's fourth album, aptly named Toto IV , released in 1982. Africa  topped the charts across North America and performed exceptionally well worldwide with its powerful chorus, extensive keyboard usage, and subtle guitar playing. Alongside Rosanna , also from Toto IV , Africa  has become a yacht rock staple, but it didn’t stop there—it transcended the genre to become one of the most iconic songs of the '80s. Today, it's still adored, nearing two billion streams on Spotify. The song has also become a favorite for covers, from bar bands to top-notch acts like Weezer.

10. Baby Come Back  - Player

Player carved out a slice of mainstream success in the late '70s, as soft rock began to resonate with those not taken by styles like punk rock and disco. Their biggest hit by far was the North American chart-topper Baby Come Back . Aside from being a soft rock staple, the song has also gained a new life as a meme across the internet. While yacht rock songs typically shy away from overly heartfelt or emotional lyrics, focusing more on the groove, Baby Come Back  manages to do both masterfully. The song blends notable emotional depth with an undeniably groovy beat, making it incredibly memorable—so much so that it's recognized by just about every American

11. Just the Two of Us  - Grover Washington Jr, Bill Withers

12. Southern Cross  - Crosby, Stills & Nash

13. Take it Easy  - Eagles

14. Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)  - Christopher Cross

15. Year of the Cat  - Al Stewart

16. Hey Nineteen  - Steely Dan

17. Still the One  - Orleans

18. Sharing the Night Together  - Dr. Hook

19. Sister Golden Hair  - America

20. Dreams  - Fleetwood Mac

21. Summer Breeze  - Seals & Croft

22. Guitar Man  - Bread

23. Thunder Island  - Jay Ferguson

24. Lido Shuffle  - Boz Scaggs

25. Give Me the Night  - George Benson

26. How Much I Feel  - Ambrosia

27. Reminiscing  - Little River Band

28. Doctor My Eyes  - Jackson Browne

29. Sara Smile  - Hall & Oates

30. Rosanna  - Toto

31. All Night Long (All Night)  - Lionel Richie

32. I.G.Y.  - Donald Fagan

33. Minute By Minute  - The Doobie Brothers

34. If You Leave Me Now  - Chicago

35. Time Out of Mind  - Steely Dan

36. Kokomo  - The Beach Boys

37. Eye in the Sky  - Alan Parsons Project

38. Sentimental Lady  - Bob Welch

39. Rich Girl  - Hall & Oates

40. What You Won't Do for Love  - Bobby Caldwell

41. Ride Like the Wind  - Christopher Cross

42. I'd Really Love to See You Tonight  - England Dan & John Ford Coley

43. Lovely Day  - Bill Withers

44. Graceland  - Paul Simon

45. Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes - Jimmy Buffett

46. Time Passages  - Al Stewart

47. One of These Nights  - Eagles

48. She's Gone  - Hall & Oates

49. Silly Love Songs  - Wings

50. Hold On  - Santana

51. Steal Away  - Robbie Dupree

52. Dance With Me  - Orleans

53. Listen to the Music  - The Doobie Brothers

54. How Long  - Ace

55. So Into You  - Atlanta Rhythm Section

56. Diamond Girl  - Seals & Croft

57. Lotta Love  - Nicolette Larson

58. We Just Disagree  - Dave Mason

59. Mexico  - James Taylor

60. Keep on Loving You  - REO Speedwagon

61. Baker Street  - Gerry Rafferty

62. Tender is the Night  - Jackson Browne

63. Love Will Find a Way  - Pablo Cruise

64. You Can Do Magic  - America

65. Key Largo  - Bertie Higgins

66. When You're In Love With a Beautiful Woman  - Dr. Hook

67. Dirty Work  - Steely Dan

68. All Out of Love  - Air Supply

69. I Saw the Light  - Todd Rundgren

70. Let Me Love You Tonight  - Pure Prairie League

71. I Love You  - Climax Blues Band

72. I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)  - Michael McDonald

73. This is It  - Kenny Loggins

74. The Things We Do For Love  - 10cc

75. Say You Love Me  - Fleetwood Mac

76. Biggest Part of Me  - Ambrosia

77. You're the Inspiration  - Chicago

78. Dream Weaver  - Gary Wright

79. Longer  - Dan Fogelberg

80. You Are  - Lionel Richie

81. Just a Song Before I Go  - Crosby, Stills & Nash

82. Right Down the Line  - Gerry Rafferty

83. New Frontier  - Donald Fagan

84. I Love a Rainy Night  - Eddie Rabbitt

85. Cool Night  - Paul Davis

86. Get Down On It  - Kool & The Gang

87. It's Raining Again - Supertramp

88. Vincent  - Don McLean

89. Crazy Love  - Poco

90. Spooky  - Atlanta Rhythm Section

91. Vienna  - Billy Joel

92. Cool Cat  - Queen

93. Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You  - George Benson

94. Hypnotized  - Bob Welch (Also Released by Fleetwood Mac)

95. Casablanca  - Bertie Higgins

96. Think of Laura  - Christopher Cross

97. Fooled Around and Fell in Love  - Elvin Bishop

98. Private Eyes  - Hall & Oates

99. Lonesome Loser  - Little River Band

100. Moonlight Feels Right - Starbuck

All of the picks from this list have been compiled into a streamable Spotify Playlist below entitled Yacht Rock Top 100 .

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• Entertainment

Finally, a name for that music: “Yacht Rock”

A few little-known facts about singer/songwriter Michael McDonald: Aside from topping the charts in the 1980s, he was a tireless defender and advocate of smooth music. His best friend ...

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A few little-known facts about singer/songwriter Michael McDonald: Aside from topping the charts in the 1980s, he was a tireless defender and advocate of smooth music. His best friend died in a back-alley songwriting contest, and he feuded with one-time songwriting partner Kenny Loggins. Actor Vincent Price, however, forced the two to make amends so they could conjure a spirit to help with the recording of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Sound a bit far-fetched? Rockin’ on the yacht JD Ryznar offers a curated selection of his favorite less-obvious songs of the era “Any World (That I’m Welcome To)” by Steely Dan “Aside from being totally awesome and beautiful, this is one of the first Dan songs to feature Michael McDonald’s huge background vocal power. The presence of McDonald’s voice pretty much legitimizes any song’s Yacht Rock status.” “It Keeps You Runnin’ ” by Carly Simon “This is not only a cover of the Doobie Brothers’ hit, but also actually features the Doobies as the backing band. Still, it’s a totally original take on the song, and a rare example of Yacht Rock female empowerment.” Kenny Loggins’ alternate versions “If you hear a song on a Doobie or Michael McDonald album that was co-written by Kenny Loggins, chances are, Loggins has a version of that song with a classic Loggins twist. Check out Loggin’s versions of the Doobies ‘What a Fool Believes’ and Michael McDonald’s ‘I Gotta Try’ & ‘No Lookin’ Back’ to see what I mean.”

Not to JD Ryznar, the Los Angeles based writer, actor and director who portrays the man with the beard in his series of short films called “Yacht Rock.” The shorts, which have garnered a cult following thanks to their success as part of the Web site Channel 101’s monthly film contests (and subsequent downloads and blog shout-outs), take a look behind the scenes at the creation of the ultra-creamy hits that made folks like McDonald, Loggins and Toto pop stars in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Ryznar coined the term “Yacht Rock” after he noticed a series of connections and similarities between Steely Dan and groups like the Doobie Brothers and Toto. Such as:

All of them seemed to share members and collaborate frequently with each other and people like Kenny Loggins. A lot of the music of the era featured albums with guys on boats on the cover and songs about sailing. This music sounds really good on boats because it’s good for relaxing, sitting back and drinking. And so “Yacht Rock” was born. The show (see the full episodes here: www.channel101.com/shows/show.php?show_id=152 offers surreal backstories for singles known more for their gentle grooves than any underlying drama. But the series doesn’t attempt to satirize the musicians themselves. Instead, Ryznar takes aim at the songwriting process. “When people want to sit down and write a hit record, they get together and it’s trial and error — not so much fun,” he says. “But if you infuse it with some sort of completely made up fairy tale story, suddenly it becomes a lot more interesting.” This sly reverence for the subject matter gives the show an added nuance. After all, taking potshots at yesterday’s hit makers would be just too easy. But much of the humor also comes from inverting the stereotypical images people have of the musicians in question. “When artists like Hall & Oates and Michael Jackson have such huge personas, you don’t want to just see another impersonation,” says Ryznar. Thus, Hall & Oates become two thuggish trash-talkers from the hard streets of Philadelphia always looking for a fight and Michael Jackson gets portrayed as a brute womanizer. Even Journey front man Steve Perry gets the treatment, showing up in a couple of episodes as a motivational rocker who persuades Kenny Loggins to turn to the hard side. Ryznar’s show has gotten him some notice and even an agent. The moderate success he’s achieved underscores the growing impact that Channel 101 ( www.channel101.com ) has as an important outlet for up and coming talent to showcase material that ordinarily wouldn’t get a cursory glance at major Hollywood studios. Started by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab in 2003, Channel 101 allows anyone to submit a pilot, the best of which are selected and shown at monthly screenings held in Los Angeles. A sister site, www.channel102.net , recently opened up shop in New York. The top five vote-getters each month are added to a category called Primetime and are then allowed to make another episode. This constant influx of submissions means everyone has to keep upping the ante from month to month. While Yacht Rock’s subject matter might make it seem like a strange candidate for such a word-of-mouth following, Ryznar’s idea ended up in the right place at the right time.

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The greatest Yacht Rock songs of all time

How does one describe yacht rock? The folks at MasterClass did a pretty good job. Essentially, it's a component of soft rock, adult contemporary, and Album-oriented rock (AOR) all rolled into one. Popular in the late 1970s and into the '80s, there are some notable tunes of the ilk (smooth rhythms, light or "breezy" vocals, well-polished and produced) from earlier in the '70s that fall into this category.

In the spirit of easy listening fare, here is our ranking of 22 great yacht rock tunes.

20. "Lonely Boy" (1977), Andrew Gold

The Southern Californian's biggest hit, reaching No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. Yacht rock tracks often tell stories, and "Lonely Boy" is one of the great story songs. Whether it's autobiographical in nature has always been ripe for a casual argument. Though Gold, who passed away in 2011 at age 59, repeatedly claimed this song about a boy who felt left out following the birth of his sister was not depicting his life. The 1970s were ripe for one-hit wonders in the United States, and Gold is not still forgotten. 

19. "I Love You" (1981), Climax Blues Band

"I Love You"  is a sweet, endearing ballad. The kind of song that probably sounded great via that portable 8-track cassette player on a catamaran during an early '80s' summer. From England, Climax Blues Band scored a top-15 hit with "I Love You." Love was a dependable and generally successful topic for artists within the soft/yacht rock genre. In fact, the song is still quite popular on lite rock and adult contemporary radio stations on your FM dial for those who still like to hear their music that way. 

18. "Rosanna" (1982), Toto

Toto rightfully has a place in the yacht rock world, but the band also broke into the top-40, FM radio, and MTV mainstream with the release of 1982's Toto IV . "Rosanna" was a big reason for the album's success, peaking at No. 2 on Billboard 's Hot 100 and winning the Record of the Year Grammy Award. Sure, it's not typical yacht rock fare, per se. It's certainly heavier than other popular tracks on this list, but it's certainly a product of AOR and still routinely played in dentist offices throughout America. 

17. "Love Will Keep Us Together" (1975), Captain & Tennille

There are those historians who believe the first true example of yacht rock came with this popular '70s staple from the "Captain"   Daryl Dragon  and his wife Toni Tennille. Now, Neil Sedaka  wrote "Love Will Keep Us Together" and originally recorded the song two years earlier. Still, the duo's version was  more poppy, with a carefree vibe  that's ideal for FM radio. While Captain & Tennille's cover won a Record of the Year Grammy Award, Sedaka has noted that the Beach Boys were one of the inspirations for the tune. This makes sense since many music critics, professionals, historians, etc.. have credited the yacht rock genre as somewhat of an offshoot from the Beach Boys' collective sound. 

16. "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" (1979), Rupert Holmes

This No.1 Billboard Hot 100 hit for England's Rupert Holmes has achieved a steady cult following over the years. Perhaps, because of the unique title and conjured images of some warm, beach-laden paradise. Yacht rock's association with summer, water, and care-free living, as a backdrop to a romantic story, is one of its appealing aspects. This song is about a couple who ultimately patch up a rough relationship through personal ads . Any time somebody of a certain age sips one of these drinks, ideally at some Caribbean resort with the warm winds off the ocean blowing, "The Pina Colada Song" should come to mind.

15. "Reminiscing" (1978), Little River Band

Formed in Australia, the soft/pop rock and often yacht rock stylings of LRB were a hit in the United States. " Reminiscing " was the band's biggest hit in America, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Like many songs of this genre, "Reminiscing" is paced by the electric piano. Which also happened to be a staple of the Little River Band. Sure, it's not "breezy" like other yacht rock tunes, but Will Ferrell's Det. Allen Gamble is a big fan in The Other Guys (2010).

14. "Africa" (1982), Toto

Yes, more from Toto. If there's one popular Toto hit that whole-heartedly falls under the yacht rock moniker, it's " Africa ." The group's only song to top the Billboard Hot 100, and made a resurgence with Weezer's popular cover in recent years , "Africa," is the proper combination of mellow and poppy. It continues the Toto tradition of shared vocals, while the consistent synthesizer and keyboard presence, though more pronounced than the typical soft rock/adult contemporary vibe. 

13. "How Much I Feel" (1978), Ambrosia

L.A.'s Ambrosia, co-founded by vocalist/guitarist/songwriter David Pack and bassist Joe Puerta was all about the soft rock sound that surfaced in Southern California during the early 1970s. "How Much I Feel," from the group's third album Life Beyond L.A. , might have more of an adult contemporary vibe but certainly falls into the yacht rock category. It was one of the band's biggest hits, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. It's remained popular over the years, even being sampled by Kanye West.

12. "Peg" (1977), Steely Dan

Steely Dan was, in its prime, under the direction of celebrated songwriters Donald Fagan and Walter Becker, many things regarding a collective sound. Rock, pop, jazz, blues. Usually melodic, well within the soft-rock category. Songs like "Peg," from the 1977 masterpiece Aja , certainly has a yacht rock vibe, too. Perhaps most notably is that the great Michael McDonald, longtime frontman of the Doobie Brothers and driving singer-songwriter in the soft/yacht rock circles, provides backing vocals on the track. 

11. "Biggest Part of Me" (1980), Ambrosia

It really does get more yacht rock than this—smooth , with a flowing rhythm, precise, but not overbearing, harmonies . Not to mention the subtly stellar keyboard work from David C. Lewis. Throw in sessionist Ernie Watts' sax solo, and we have one great soft/yacht offering. It was the second of Ambrosia's two top-5 hits, reaching No. 3 on Billboard 's Hot 100. The version from the 1980s One Eighty  album runs about 5 1/2 minutes long. Talk about pure easy-listening joy.

10. "Summer Breeze" (1972), Seals & Crofts"

Long considered one of the great "summer songs" ever recorded. And summer-themed tunes from the 1970s tend to lend themselves to the yacht rock moniker. That said, Seals & Crofts were definitely a soft rock outfit, but with elements of folk and pop. "Summer Breeze" peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the 1970s and, again, is notable for being one of the earliest yacht rock offerings. Several other prominent artists, such as Ray Conniff, the Isley Brothers, and a stellar metal version from Type O Negative. 

9. "Ride Like the Wind" (1979), Christopher Cross

It's safe to say that Christopher Cross is the king of yacht rock. A brilliant songwriter and above-average guitar player, Cross could rock, but it's his definitive soft rock numbers that made him a star with lite-FM, adult contemporary and yacht rock fans. "Ride Like the Wind"  is the first single from Cross' stellar five-time Grammy-Award-winning self-titled debut from 1979. A more upbeat number about an outlaw running from the authorities, the track is less uplifting than other yacht rock tunes, but the vibe is the same. Of note, Michael McDonald provided backing vocals.

8. "Baby Come Back" (1977), Player

From John Friesen's steady drum intro to that durably underlaid bass line via Ron Moss to J.C. Crowley's keyboard presence begins the soft-rock brilliance of "Baby Come Back." With lyrics describing the yearning to reacquire a lost love and full-band harmonies, "Baby Come Back" just might be the quintessential offering of the yacht rock genre. It was the biggest hit for Player , the L.A.-based group that featured vocalist and song co-writer Peter Beckett, who was born in England. The tune topped the Billboard Hot 100 and still has a presence with its inclusion in films such as Transformers and  Black Adam.  Plus, various versions in popular TV shows like The Simpsons. American Dad  and King of the Hill.

7. "What a Fool Believes" (1979), The Doobie Brothers

The Doobie Brothers were a rather hard-rocking outfit before Michael McDonald joined up in the mid-1970s. The band was in need of an established songwriter, and McDonald delivered. However, with a more mellow, synthesizer/electric piano-driven sound that produced soft-rock gems like this one. Co-written by Kenny Loggins, who put out a version for himself, "What a Fool Believes" hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 in April 1979. Several critics have cited this as the best song in the vast Doobie Brothers catalog. 

6. "Steal Away" (1980), Robbie Dupree

If you're going to be a one-hit wonder, why not make it count? More than 30 years since its release, " Steal Away " can still be heard in elevators and office buildings throughout the United States -- or in the third season of Better Call Saul . Undeniably yacht rock, Dupree, born in Brooklyn, enjoyed success with the song during the summer of 1980 -- always a perfect time to enjoy the smooth, soothing sounds of a piece within this genre that peaked at No. 6 on Billboar d's Hot 100.

5. "Moonlight Feels Right" (1975), Starbuck

Here's a case where middle-aged and baby-boomer music fans probably remember the song but perhaps not the group who performed the track. That's OK. Atlanta's Starbuck is essentially a one-hit wonder thanks to "Moonlight Feels Right," which topped out at No. 3 on Billboard 's Hot 100. For those who remember this track for its lite-flowing beat, with lyrical references to the ocean, "Baltimore," and 'Ole Miss," and band member Bo Wagner marimba   solo, it might take them back to a simpler, more laidback time in their lives.

4. "Heart to Heart" (1982), Kenny Loggins

Perhaps more so than the previously mentioned "This Is It," "Heart to Heart" truly has all the requirements of a great yacht rock/soft rock tune. It was co-written by Michael McDonald, who also played the electric piano and provided backing vocals. David Foster, of Chicago songwriting and '80s ballad fame, also helped compose the tune, which features David Sanborn on saxophone. The track is one of Loggins' best-known hits, cracking the top 20 of the Hot 100.

3. "Lowdown" (1976), Boz Scaggs

Co-written by David Paich and featuring Jeff Porcaro on drums -- both of whom who go on to form the aforementioned Toto. One of Scaggs most well-known hits, "Lowdown"  has a bluesy and almost disco vibe. And a number we can imagine being played at some swanky yacht club party where the dance floor is filled, and more than a few people are sporting captain's hats. The song reached No. 3 on Billboard 's Hot 100 and also topped the Billboard Cash Box chart in the United States.

2. "Key Largo" (1981), Bertie Higgins

Yacht rock and one-hit wonders seem to go hand-in-hand. Higgins scored one in the early 1980s with this number that reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Florida native was inspired to write this song about trying to avoid a romantic breakup by the 1948 movie of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart   and Lauren Bacall, who are referenced in the tune. Though Higgins never enjoyed the same individual success as a musician, the song has had a solid shelf life and remains a definitive moment in the yacht rock genre.

1. "Sailing" (1979), Christopher Cross

Sure, "Ride Like the Wind" is a gem, but the undisputed star of Cross' aforementioned debut album is the Hot 100-chart-topper "Sailing." It might be the definitive yacht rock song, capturing what Cross described, at the time, the "West Coast sound," which was long being composed, produced and performed, but maybe didn't have an appropriate moniker. The song won Grammys for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Arrangement of the Year, and was a big reason Cross earned the same award for Best New Artist.

A Chicago native, Jeff Mezydlo has professionally written about sports, entertainment and pop culture for parts of four decades. He was an integral member of award-winning sports sections at The Times of Northwest Indiana (Munster, Ind.) and Champaign (Ill.) News-Gazette, where he covered the NFL, PGA, LPGA, NCAA basketball, football and golf, Olympics and high school athletics. Jeff most recently spent 12 years in the editorial department at STATSPerform, where he also oversaw coverage of the English Premier League. A graduate of Northern Illinois University, Jeff's work has also appeared on such sites at Yahoo!, ESPN, Fox Sports, Sports Illustrated and NBA.com. However, if Jeff could do it again, he'd attend Degrassi Junior High, Ampipe High School and Grand Lakes University

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Sail Away: The Oral History of ‘Yacht Rock’

By Drew Toal

This story was originally published on June 26, 2015

I n the late 1970s and early 1980s, musical artists like Kenny Loggins , Michael McDonald , Steely Dan , Toto , Hall and Oates , and dozens of others regularly popped up on each other’s records, creating a golden era of smooth-music collaboration.

And on June 26th, 2005, an internet phenomenon was born. In 12 short but memorable episodes — first via the the short-film series Channel 101 and then online — JD Ryznar, Hunter Stair, Dave Lyons, Lane Farnham and their friends redefined an era and coined a term for the sultry croonings of McDonald, Fagen, et al.: “yacht rock.”

As “Hollywood” Steve might say, these guys docked a fleet of remarkable hits. This is the story of Yacht Rock, told from stem to stern — a reimagining of a bygone soft-rock renaissance, courtesy of hipsters with fake mustaches, impeccable record collections and a love of smoothness. Long may it sail.

Dave Lyons (“Koko”): You know how, in the Seventies, these big bands started playing arena rock? We liked the idea of these smooth bands playing “Marina Rock.” I thought it was a better name.

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Lane Farnham (editor, “Jimmy Messina”): JD and I had talked about Journey for a year before we did Yacht Rock. In the third episode, that whole “you need to fly like a pilot” bit? Those are direct lines from Steve Perry in this crazy documentary we found. He’s coked to the gills, in the Eighties, just blabbering about who knows what. We got a kick out of that stuff. 

Ryznar: My musical tastes are not that interesting, and they never were.

Huey: I turned 30 right before we started doing the series, and I thought, well, this is a nice round number. What do 30-year-olds do? I feel like it’s time I get into Steely Dan. I bought most of the catalogue and was like, This is my new identity. I’m gonna unwind, start listening to Steely Dan, and leave parties early.

Ryznar : It was a cool scene at the time: Justin Roiland had [Channel 101 series] House of Cosbys, Dan Harmon had Laser Fart. Our friends Drew Hancock and Wade Randolph, who would go on to play Hall and Oates, they had a show about a regular guy who got angry, and turned into a smaller, shirtless weaker guy who didn’t turn green or anything.

Drew Hancock (“Oates”): That was called “Man to Man: Metamorphosis Ultra.” It was the lowest stakes Incredible Hulk show you could possibly have.

Justin Roiland (co-creator of Rick & Morty and House of Cosbys, “Christopher Cross”): Every single month you’re making something, and then you’re testing it in front of a live audience. You see what works, what doesn’t work.

Ryznar : It was a January 2005 screening where we started the school of Channel 101, where you’re showing the stuff you made in front of 200, maybe 300 people. And then they put it on the “internet,” which was very hard to do back then. There was no “YouTube.” Listen to Old Man Ryznar here.

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Lyons: Two paddles and a ball that you hit back and forth on the beach. We turned it into a soap opera .

Stair : We started playing Kenny Loggins’ “Playing With the Boys” [from Top Gun ] on repeat as we drove a convertible around Playa del Rey. Just to get in the mood.

Ryznar : There were some Phil Collins music cues, I think. A lot of sports music from Eighties movies — “You’re the Best Around” and whatnot. We used a great Kenny Loggins song for the climax. It’s from Caddyshack II . . .

Christening the Ship Ryznar : Hunter and Dave Lyons came up with an idea for a show about a couple of jewel thieves who lived on a yacht and listened to that music.

Stair : That was actually called Steal Away.

Lyons: I believe Hunter and I were talking about a private eye detective team called Loggins & Loggins that lived on a houseboat and solved mysteries — like Simon & Simon.

Ryznar : I said: How about we play Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald as they co-write “What a Fool Believes” together? We had Stevie Nicks in there originally, for some reason. And then Drew Hancock and Wade Randolph said, we want to be Hall and Oates. I had gotten into the H&O song “Portable Radio” pretty hard. I needed to introduce it to the world. That was very important to me.

Stair : The seed of Koko the manager is . . . there’s a Doobie Brothers album that has a sweet looking manager dude on it. I remember sitting there with JD and being like, look how awesome this guy is.

Ryznar : Dave Lyons invented the Koko character while out drinking with Hunter one night. He just put on a bunch of garbage Seventies clothes he had around the house, and had a little stupid whistle around his neck. All these little touches — that’s what Dave is so great at.

Lyons: No, [Dan Harmon] wasn’t an immediate fan. That’s because he doesn’t get music. Just listen to the theme song for  Community — it’s terrible. Dan looks at things differently than most people, and I don’t think he loves music the way we do. But he came around. He came to really enjoy it. [Harmon would eventually play record producer Ted Templeman in two episodes.]

Huey: I was a published music writer, and that lent me a voice of authority that I might not have otherwise had amongst a hardcore group of music nerds. “Oh this guy’s viewpoint has to be legitimate! He’s published.”

Steve Agee (“Steve Porcaro”): Channel 101 at that point in time was really known for people making videos kind of purposely shitty. So we couldn’t tell if it was made to look bad on purpose.

Hancock: When Wade and I saw the first episode, we were like, eh, this isn’t very good. We didn’t like it. I didn’t understand it. So when it had this meteoric response, I was very surprised.

Ryznar : So Yacht Rock got screened, we were very nervous, and it went over like gangbusters. Just bona fide love from beginning to end from the audience. And we got voted number one on our first try, which hadn’t been done too often on Channel 101.

Stair : It got the biggest laugh of the night. As soon as it was over, we knew we were in. We weren’t totally sure it was going to be number one, but we knew we’d be up there.

Ryznar : A lot of people wanted parts. People had ideas. So we got to work with people we wanted to work with. Before we even knew we were picked up for a second episode, Hunter came up to me and said, “Uh, just talking to Doug Benson. I told him he could play Peter Cetera in the next episode.”

Lyons: The thing about the Channel 101 screenings, they’re always at a place that serves lots of alcohol. And after we saw how well it went over, we’re all drinking at the bar; Dan Harmon is doing a show with Sarah Silverman [ The Sarah Silverman Program ] at the time, and Doug was there with her. Yes, Hunter promised him the role of Peter Cetera. Which is great casting. 

Episode Two: The Songwriting Contest In the second episode, Hall and Oates challenge Loggins and Messina to songwriting contest. It ends with the creation of some of the greatest smooth music ever.

Ryznar : I mean, imagine if you saw Hall and Oates where Oates, with all that hair and the mustache, was the top, and Hall was the bottom? They were sort of the opposite of the smooth California scene. So they sort of made the perfect antagonists.

Huey: The only reason they were picked as antagonists is because they’re from Philadelphia, which is a mean place.

Wade Randolph (“Daryl Hall”): The Hall wig is named the De Carlo. I don’t know why.

Hancock: I remember for the mustache, I think I tried a regular handlebar mustache but it just wasn’t thick enough. So I just ended up taking a lock of the wig and fashioning a mustache out of that.

Stair : And Justin Roiland coming in, doing “Sailing.” The way the whole thing flowed, it’s so fast and perfect. I think that was Yacht Rock ‘s the finest hour.

Roiland: JD asked me, would you play Christopher Cross? I’d never heard “Sailing” before, believe it or not. I remember the first few listens going I don’t get the appeal of this fucking song. It’s an acquired taste.

Huey: We didn’t quite know what we had at that point, and so you kind of had to establish the value system. Smoothness is the main value in this world. The second episode, when that screened for the live audience, I’ve never seen a Channel 101 audience go that apeshit for anything. I remember walking out of the screening going, we’re rock stars! Granted, it’s only this one room, with like 300 people in it, but in that one room of 300 people, I think we might be rock stars.

Koko Makes His Final Voyage Lyons: As soon as we got in for the first one, JD called me and said here’s the idea for the second one: I’m gonna kill off Koko. Well, thanks a pantload, JD. He’s like, no it’ll be great. You’ll come back later as a ghost or something.

Stair : So JD wanted this guy Koko to have this totem at this fight; I suggested a trident, since it’s more nautical. But Anchorman had come out, and they had the fight scene with the trident. We still needed something, so we settled on a harpoon.

Stair : You can’t kill Loggins. You can’t kill McDonald. These are real people. Koko had to die.

Lyons: My thought is that Koko fell on his own harpoon and martyred himself. I like to think that Koko was the Jesus Christ of Yacht Rock. [ Pause ] That’s going to sound arrogant. How about: Koko died to deliver smooth music to the rest of the musicians.

Huey: I don’t think it was ever decided who killed Koko until the very end. The important thing is, like Jesus, he died for a cause. Which, in this case, was smooth music. But you know what’s gonna happen if you’re in the middle of a melée with a bunch of guys from the mean streets of Philadelphia. You’re going to die of a harpoon injury. That’s why they call it the city of harpoon murders.

Randolph: I always assumed it was Oates.

Wyatt Cenac (“James Ingram”): Who killed Koko? You know, very good question. If I had to go with anybody… I’d say maybe Loggins and McDonald together. That’s the secret twist. I think they’d been slowly poisoning him for years, and the harpoon was just to throw people of their scent.

Ryznar : I don’t know. Is Tony Soprano dead? Hollywood Steve took the “Koko” answer to his grave.

Stair : I would never name names. Only Hollywood Steve knows for sure, and someone would have to give him big Hollywood dollars to spill.

Any Port in a Storm After 10 stellar installments, including a guest appearance by “Cleveland” Drew Carey ,  a case for Jethro Tull (the 18th century farmer, not the band) to be considered smooth and a primer on how Michael McDonald influenced Nineties G-Funk , Yacht Rock was canceled by Channel 101 after “FM” — about a gang war between the Eagles and Steely Dan. But help was on the horizon.

Ryznar : The record at the time was 12. We really wanted to beat it — but we didn’t. There might have been Yacht Rock fatigue in the audience.

Lyons: It’s not one of my favorites. I’m not a fan of the Eagles, and not a lot of people get Steely Dan.

Ryznar : It was heartbreaking, man. Because the great thing about Channel 101 is, you can feel when the audience isn’t into it. And the audience was not into this. I knew the 101 days were over as soon as the screening was done.

Stair : Nowadays, things have two- or three-year runs at Channel 101. Back then, 10 episodes was a lot.

Ryznar : Not even two weeks after we were canceled, I got an email from someone who booked a bar in Chicago — The Empty Bottle — and wanted to screen all the Yacht Rocks. I forget if they flew us out or if we just happened to be there, but we screened all the episodes back to back. There was a line down the block; the place was filled to capacity. People were quoting lines.

Huey: The show had started to go viral. Working lower level jobs in reality television, and then walking into a bar and being the most famous person in that room didn’t match up with my everyday experience at all.

Cast Off . . . Again After successfully touring the country, JD & co. starting making new episodes, beginning with Footloose. Featuring the likes of Jason Lee and Wyatt Cenac, it tells the story of how Loggins being kidnapped by Jimmy Buffett led to one of the Eighties’ most rockin’ soundtracks.

Huey: Yeah I was really excited to get back into it, because I didn’t really have too much else going on at that point. Let’s do that thing that made me semi-famous again!

Ryznar : We did the Footloose episode. And it turned out even better than I could have imagined. It was nice, since we weren’t limited to five minutes, even though we tried to keep it close: one of the keys to Yacht Rock is jamming everything into five minutes. I had done some work with Jason Lee, who would quote lines every time I saw him. So I asked if he’d play Kevin Bacon, and he was throwing chairs around.

Ryznar : We portrayed parrotheads being brainwashed idiots. You kind of have to be if you’re into Jimmy Buffett. Or just want to be so tuned out of life, that like hey, whatever — kick back with flip flops, drink some margs, listen to some sweet Jimmy Buffett music and let him paint a rosy picture of a reality that does not exist.

Lyons: I always like that artists like Bertie Higgins, Rupert Holmes and Andy Kim have an authentic longing in their music. Buffett is a rich dude getting richer off of the lack of taste of the poor and stupid. He represents the lowest common denominator in music, even worse than country singers profiting off of 9/11. To summarize: I’m not really a fan.

Ryznar : You might be able to argue that Jimmy Buffett music is about escaping from a dark place, but there’s no soul in there. So we just wanted to make him an absolute idiot. Our good friend Vatche Panos, who is super funny, really hit a home run with that one.

Cenac: I remember when we were shooting that, I had no idea there was a song called “Cheeseburgers in Paradise.” Much less that people actually listened to it and liked it.

Ryznar : I hope he doesn’t mind me telling this story, but Wyatt Cenac had just auditioned for The Daily Show , and he was flat broke.

Cenac: Yeah, I was definitely very broke. That isn’t why I did it. I did enjoy it. But there was also a part of being broke where you’ll do anything.

Ryznar : And then a month later, he becomes Wyatt Cenac, the international sensation.

Huey : We did one more, and I didn’t feel like the last episode came together as well as it could have for whatever reason. I think Footloose was a more cohesive episode. Also the original idea for the finale was Gene Balboa was going to kidnap all these people from the “We Are the World” session , take them to an island, and force them to write soundtrack hits for him. Anyone who tried to escape would get hunted down like in The Most Dangerous Game.

Ryznar : That was a hard one to write — the space battle, Hall and Oates shooting lasers, Loggins starting his soundtrack phase. I’m proud of killing off Hollywood Steve and making it a pain drug-induced hallucination. I think that let us go nuts with it. The “We Are the World” part was a fun shoot. You just look around and go, wow, I know so many talented people that are bringing so much to this thing.

Stair : The Hollywood Steve “character” was on morphine, not Huey. Well, he might have been on morphine, I don’t know. That’d be an awesome salacious story about Yacht Rock. Just write that, it’s even better.

Huey : When I was using, it did get increasingly harder to tell where the character stopped and I began. Once you’ve been on VH1’s “100 Greatest Songs of the Nineties,” the public expects you to maintain a certain image, and I guess I got caught up in a myth. [ Pause ] I’m kidding. But I did murder a homeless woman. Just to see what it felt like.

Farnham: One of my favorite moments of all of Yacht Rock is when Giorgio Moroder is whispering into Kenny Loggins’ ear about “the Danger Zone.” I love that. It’s such a good moment.

Ryznar : Loggins going soundtrack is kind of like the end of Yacht Rock. If “Sailing” is one of the greatest yacht-rock songs ever, and that’s in Episode Two, it’s all death from then on. “Danger Zone” — there’s just nothing smooth about that song at all. By 1985, Michael McDonald had released his last great album. The Doobie Brothers were done. Toto didn’t have any more good songs in them. Steely Dan was broken up. It was over.

Ryznar : People actually contacted me and wanted to see if I wanted tickets to [their] shows at the Hollywood Bowl. We went backstage and met Hall and Oates. There’s a picture out there somewhere of Drew Hancock and Wade Randolph with Hall and Oates — and it’s awesome.

Randolph: I don’t know who contacted who, but Oates had seen the show and was apparently a fan of it. Hall didn’t give a fuck about us at all. He was just like whatever.

Hancock: Oates actually understood what we were doing. First of all, he’s the shortest dude on the planet. I’m 5’8, and he looked at me and said, man you’re way too tall to play me. I think he’s 5’4 and had thick heels on too.

Cenac: Oates is the unsung hero in that group. The moment he decides to turn the jets on, watch out.

Lyons: The only negative thing I’ve ever heard from any of the actual people we’ve portrayed was that Kenny Loggins wasn’t a huge fan. My wife met him once, and said my husband played Koko in Yacht Rock. He just got all, huh. Not mean, not nasty. Just: Huh.

Stair : I’m not sure Loggins liked it, [but] I know his son did. A lot of the kids of the guys in the show like. You know, some serious artists. Michael McDonald, I’m pretty sure he liked it.

“I met Steve Porcaro at a book-release party, and he asked, ‘Do you guys hate us?’ We’re writing a love letter to this music and we meant no ill will toward anybody. Except for Jimmy Buffett.”

Michael McDonald (speaking to Time Out New York in 2008): “I thought Yacht Rock was hilarious. And uncannily, you know, those things always have a little bit of truth to them. It’s kind of like when you get a letter from a stalker who’s never met you. They somehow hit on something, and you have to admit they’re pretty intuitive.”

Agee: About a year ago, I was at Largo, and one of the guys that works there is married to Steve Porcaro’s daughter. He was like, yeah, Steve is actually here tonight; he loves Yacht Rock, and said he wanted to meet me. I cut out early because I was honestly too nervous.

Stair : I met Steve Porcaro at a book-release party, and he kind of pulled me aside and asked, “Do you guys hate us?” And I was like, oh no, I hope that’s not the impression we gave anybody. We’re writing a love letter to this music and we meant no ill will toward anybody. Except for Jimmy Buffett.

Farnham: I actually worked with an editor who was good friends with the Toto folks, and they said it’s uncanny how close some of these stories are. Apparently there’s a lot more truth than we know.

Agee: So I can see how bands would be like, oh, they’re making fun of us. But I’ve known JD for awhile now, and I know for a fact that he loves that music. I don’t think someone who hated what’s now called yacht rock . . they wouldn’t spend so much time making videos about it.

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Lyons: I felt we always treated the music lovingly. It was always treated with respect; what we were trying to make fun of was all these guys hanging out and the ridiculous things they were into. I heard a story that Kenny Loggins got married in the nude. I don’t know if it’s true or not. But that’s the kind of late Seventies/early Eighties Southern California horse shit that is so delightful about Yacht Rock. Like wanting to find out what your root chakra is. That’s what’s funny about it. [ Pause ] I mean of course Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry are going to be into karate!

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That '70s Week: Yacht Rock

Talia Schlanger

Donald Fagen (left) and Walter Becker of Steely Dan. Danny Clinch/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Donald Fagen (left) and Walter Becker of Steely Dan.

• The Doobie Brothers, "What A Fool Believes"
• Christopher Cross, "Sailing"
• Sade, "Smooth Operator"
• Nielsen/Pearson, "If You Should Sail"
• Ned Doheny, "Get It Up For Love"
• Iron & Wine, "Desert Babbler"
• Young Gun Silver Fox, "You Can Feel It"

What's the best way to become the unchallenged expert on a particular genre of music? Invent it. Enter JD Ryznar, Hunter Stair, David B. Lyons and Steve Huey: coiners of the description "yacht rock," creators of a hilarious web series of the same name and now de facto captains of the genre. Broadly speaking, yacht rock is an ocean of smooth, soft-listening music made in the late '70s and early '80s by artists like Toto, Hall & Oates and Kenny Loggins — music you can sail to. But as David and Talia learn in this conversation with the arbiters of Yacht Rock , the waters are much murkier than that.

For example, according to Ryznar, "There's also a common misconception that just because it's about a boat, or the ocean, or sailing, that it's yacht rock. That is most definitely nyacht true." Thankfully, on their Beyond Yacht Rock podcast, our guests have developed a sound system of logical criteria to define what is "Yacht" and what is "Nyacht." They employ their patented "Yachtzee scale" to examine a song's "Yachtness" based on a number of factors, including its personnel (is there a Doobie Brother in there?), amount of jazz and R&B influence, geographic origin (Southern California is a plus) and lyrical obtuseness.

Listen as Ryznar and Lyons steer us towards the musical marina with a buoyant "Yacht or Nyacht" debate that includes Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, Sade and the most serious discussion you can have about the proper soundtrack for standing shirtless on a deck wearing boat shoes and a sailor cap. Dive on in --the water's great.

Listen: JD Ryznar's Yacht Rock Primer

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Yacht or Not?: Sailing the Seas of Yacht Rock

Louis Armstrong said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” Duke Ellington said, “There are simply two kinds of music: good music and the other kind.” Christopher Cross said, “If you get caught between the moon and New York City, the best that you can do is fall in love.”

What do these pieces of wisdom add up to? Music, like love, doesn’t follow rules. Musicians as diverse as Armstrong, Ellington and Cross don’t want to be boxed in by genre. They want to write, record and perform and not spend time deciding if they play bebop or hard bop, blues or Southern rock, funk or disco.

But as temperatures heat up and people think of sailing away to find serenity, yacht rock playlists start to float in on the breeze. And that means drawing boundaries with enough latitude that artists don’t object to being boxed in and  still foster playlists with a sense of meaning, a sense of continuity and depth. Peaks and valleys must be smartly balanced against the total annihilation of a common aesthetic. (Yes, despite a fascination with sailing and pina coladas, yacht rock can be taken seriously!)

And so, much to Armstrong’s chagrin, we have to ask, “What is yacht rock?” If it seems obvious, take a look at Spotify’s recent “Yacht Rock” playlist . Spotify is a global streaming leader with some 350 million monthly users, an army of music experts and cutting edge artificial intelligence, and yet the company filled its playlist with songs such as Tears for Fears ’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me,” Van Morrison ’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and Bruce Hornsby ’s “The Way It Is.”

If somebody wants to create and enjoy a stack of songs that runs from tunes by the J. Geils Band , to the  Police , to Bad Company , to Talking Heads (yup, the company has all these artists on its playlist and even included Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters”), they should do that with gusto! It sounds like an evening full of classic jams and fun left turns so cheers to the endeavor. But if a major player in the music business wants to do that and call it yacht rock, we need to take a step back and consider what is and isn’t yacht.

We know breezes, islands, keys, capes, cool nights, crazy love and reminiscing help define the yacht aesthetic (see works by Seals & Crofts , Jay Fergeson, Bertie Higgins, Rupert Holmes, Paul Davis, Poco , and Little River Band ). But let’s get beyond the captain’s caps and map the waters of this perfect-for-summer style.

Watch Bertie Higgins' Video for 'Key Largo' 

Yacht Rock Sets Sail With Help From a 2005 Web Series

Before 2005, people generally placed Toto ’s “ Africa ” and Holmes’ “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” in the soft rock genre. Maybe if they were getting fancy, they’d call them AM Gold. But in 2005, the online video series Yacht Rock debuted. It fictionalized the careers of soft rock artists of the late ’70s and early ’80s. The cheeky show capitalized on the building renaissance of artists such as Steely Dan and Michael McDonald , who embraced the silliness of the series.

“When it came on I remember watching it pretty avidly,” McDonald admitted in 2018 . “My kids got a huge kick out of it. We would laugh about the characterizations of the people involved. At this point it’s a genre of its own. You’re either yacht or you're not.”

He might be right that you’re either yacht or you’re not. But calling it a genre doesn’t quite work (more on that in a minute).

Listen to the Doobie Brothers' 'Minute By Minute'

Riding the Waters From the Radical ’60s to the Sincere ’70s

By the late ’60s, rock ‘n’ roll had become “art.” The Beatles started as simple teen heartthrobs covering early rock ‘n’ roll, but graduated to the supreme weirdness of the  White Album . Chuck Berry gave birth to the Rolling Stones who gave birth to Led Zeppelin and the gonzo bombast of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.” And all sorts of acts went wild from the Grateful Dead , to Pink Floyd , to Frank Zappa  and beyond. The sunshine of ’70s AM Gold came as a reaction to these wonderful excesses. Singer-songwriters aimed to take rock and pop back to the simple pleasures of tight, light tunes such as Beach Boys ’ classics, Motown hits and Brill Building-crafted songs.

Hippies looking for revolution and Gen X-ers on the hunt for rage, irony and sharp edges bristled at the genuine lyrics of tenderness and heartbreak neatly packaged in finely-crafted Top 40. Where the stars and fans of '60s and ’90s rock wanted arty and experimental music, anger and angst, yacht took listeners on a voyage powered by pure earnestness: think of the sincere and intense conviction of Dave Mason’s “We Just Disagree,” Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together," and “Love is the Answer” by England Dan & John Ford Coley.

(Which is why placing the Police or Talking Heads on any yacht mix doesn’t work.)

Yacht rock embodies the final charge of unbridled, heartfelt pop.

“I think these songs remain so popular because they are unabashedly pop,” Nicholas Niespodziani, leader of the hugely successful tribute band  Yacht Rock Revue , explains to UCR. “They’re not self conscious. You couldn’t write a song like ‘Africa’ now. What are they even singing about? Who knows? But it’s fun to sing.”

Watch Captain & Tennille's Video for 'Love Will Keep Us Together'

Music That’s Jazzy, But Sure Isn’t Jazz

Yacht rock doesn’t just have an earnestness to its lyrics, the sax solos come with the same level of sincerity.

If the style was the last gasp of unadulterated pop, it was also the dying breath of jazz’s influence on rock. Jazz rock started in the ’60s with Zappa, Chicago , Santana and Blood, Sweat & Tears , but slowly simple drums and growling guitars stomped horn lines and rhythmic shifts into the ground. However, yacht rock features echoes of swingin’ saxophones, big band horns and Miles Davis ’ fusion projects.

Yacht rock is very pop, but legitimate musical talents made those hooks. Chuck Mangione logged time in jazz giant Art Blakey’s band then took what he learned and crushed complex harmonic ideas into the pop nugget “Feels So Good,” which is basically a Latin-bebop-disco-classical suite. (If you dig “Feels So Good,” dig deeper and groove to smooth jazz mini-symphony “Give It All You Got.”)

Nearly every classic from the style features either an epic sax solo or dazzling guitar part. For horn glory, go spin Little River Band’s “Reminiscing,” Gino Vannelli’s “I Just Wanna Stop” or Grover Washington Jr. and Bill Withers ’ “Just the Two of Us." For six-string wizardry as astounding as anything Jimmy Page came up with (and much more economical), try Atlantic Rhythm Section’s “So Into You,” Pablo Cruise’s “Love Will Find a Way” and pretty much every Steely Dan cut.

(Which is why placing Tears for Fears’ “ Everybody Wants to Rule the World ” and Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” on any yacht mix doesn’t work).

Watch the Little River Band's Video for 'Reminiscing' 

A Vibe, Not a Genre or Gender or Demographic of Any Kind

Being a style, a feeling, an aesthetic, a vibe means that yacht rock can pull a song from a wide variety of genres into its orbit. It also means that it’s not just a catalog of hits from bearded white dudes. Yes, Kenny Loggins , McDonald and both Seals and Crofts helped define yacht rock. But quintessential songs from the style came from the women and artists of color, soul singers, folk heroes and Nashville aces.

For every Loggins' tune in a captain’s hat, there’s a Carly Simon track dressed up as your cruise director. Yes, there's Steely Dan's jazz influence, but also  Crosby, Stills & Nash 's folk legacy (“Southern Cross” remains definitively of the style). Yacht rock playlists should also be littered with appropriate R&B gems, such as the Raydio’s “You Can’t Change That” (which features Ray Parker Jr.!), Hall & Oates ’ “Sara Smile” and Kool & the Gang’s “Too Hot.” Likewise, country acts of the era tried to go Top 40 while attempting to retain some twang and managed to make Love Boat music (see Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning,” Eddie Rabbit’s “I Love a Rainy Night,” Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers ’ “Islands in the Stream”).

It’s hard to tell if the Commodores’ “Sail On” is pop or R&B, harder still to know if George Benson’s “Give Me the Night” is pop, R&B or jazz. But they both feel yacht.

(Which is why Santana can do psychedelic Latin music and can do yacht on “Hold On,” and why the Pointer Sisters can do new wave disco with “Neutron Dance” and yacht with “Slow Hand.")

Wishing You a Bon Voyage on the Seas of Yacht

Spotify was right to think about diversity when making its playlist, though the company got the type of diversity wrong. Yacht has some pretty specific sonic parameters, but has no demographic restrictions when it comes to the kind of artists contributing to the style’s catalog. That means when you hit the high seas of yacht, you don’t need to be afraid to fight for your favorites to be included, just please don’t have one of those favorites be “Ghostbusters.”

We began talking about drawing boundaries with enough latitude that artists don’t object to being boxed in. The wide latitude yacht rock affords matters because music comes to define eras and outlines cultural trends (remember that yacht came in reaction to art rock and that says a lot about the swing from the late '60s to the early '80s). Calling Christopher Cross soft rock might feel right, but it doesn't tell us much about where he was coming from and what he was trying to accomplish. Calling Cross yacht rock, now that we know it's not a pejorative, illuminates his aesthetic.

Cross came out of the Texas rock scene that produced blues aces the Vaughan Brothers and guitar shredder Eric Johnson (who plays on a lot of his albums). He loves Joni Mitchell and that shows in his craft. He's jazzy but not jazz (see those horns and guitar on "Ride Like the Wind") with a vibe that's completely yacht -- developed from the scene that took '60s pop, updated it and sheltered it from the trends of punk, metal, new wave and hip hop. The same can be said for Loggins, McDonald, Simon, Lionel Ritchie and so many others.

Spotify needs to tweak its algorithm so it gets this right. Or, better yet, connect with the genre-crossing vibe that makes yacht so unique.

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The idea of yacht rock conjures up a particular lifestyle, but beneath the surface lies a treasure trove of sophisticated hits that continue to resonate.

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Even some of those who signed up to the subgenre subtleties of what became known as yacht rock may consider it to be a time-locked phenomenon. Certainly, its chief protagonists first cast their subtle soft-rock sophistication in the 70s and 80s, but its melodic echoes can still be heard all these decades later.

Perhaps unusually, the phrase itself was coined as a kind of lighthearted castigation of the adult-oriented rock that seemed to exude privileged opulence: of days in expensive recording studios followed by hedonistic trips on private yachts, typically around southern California. The web TV series of the mid-00s that parodied the lifestyle was even named Yacht Rock ; one of the biggest hits of a chief exponent of the sound, Christopher Cross, was, of course, “Sailing.”

The recent resurgence in the long career of another staple, Michael McDonald, is testament to the durability of a style that was, after all, grounded in musicianship and melodicism of the highest order. Nearly 40 years after he and fellow yacht rock principle Kenny Loggins co-wrote and performed the Grammy-winning “This Is It,” the pair were afforded the high praise of a collaboration with acclaimed modern-day jazz-funk bassist Thundercat, on his track “Show You The Way.” Ahead of that, McDonald’s guest appearance with Thundercat at the 2017 Coachella Festival was a viral sensation.

Setting sail

Like other subgenres that grew from an existing style, just as Americana did from country, the starting point of yacht rock is a matter of endless debate. Some hear it in the early 70s soft rock of Bread and hits such as “Guitar Man,” or in Seals & Crofts, the duo of the same period whose 1973 US Top 10 hit “Diamond Girl” and its follow-up, “We May Never Pass This Way (Again)” are pure, classy, elegantly played and harmonised yacht rock.

As the 70s progressed and album rock radio became an ever more powerful medium in the US music business, studio production grew along with the budgets to fund it. High-fidelity citadels such as Sunset Sound and Ocean Way were the industry epitome of the Los Angeles hedonism of the day, and played host to many of the artists we celebrate here. Perhaps it was the combination of financial independence and the sun-kissed surroundings that gave rise to the phenomenon, but this was music that not only sounded opulent – it made you feel somehow more urbane just by listening to it.

California singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop was another of the artists who would retrospectively become part of what we might call the yachting club. Indeed, it’s important to point out that “yacht rock” was not a term that existed at the time the music was being made. Bishop’s acclaimed 1976 debut album, Careless , was a masterclass in well-crafted pop music for those no longer hanging on the words of every chart pin-up. Its tender opening ballad, “On And On,” which peaked just outside the mainstream US Top 10 and reached No.2 on the Easy Listening chart, is a prime example.

Making waves

McDonald, for his part, might be afforded the questionable honor of the Yacht Rock theme tune with his solo hit “Sweet Freedom,” but had earlier been a key part of the unconscious movement as a member of the Doobie Brothers. The double Grammy-winning landmark “What A Fool Believes,” again written by McDonald with Loggins, stands tall in this hall of fame. Similarly, Toto, another band of master studio craftsmen whose critical and commercial stock has risen again in recent times, stood for all the principles of yacht rock with tracks such as “99” and the undying “Africa.”

That 1982 soft-rock calling card came from the Toto IV album, which was, indeed, recorded in part at Sunset Sound and Ocean Way. But Steely Dan , one of the bands to prove that yacht rock could come from other parts of the US where the attendant lifestyle was less practical, made perhaps their biggest contribution to the subgenre after Walter Becker and Donald Fagen moved back to their native East Coast.

After their initial incarnation as a live band, Steely Dan were well established in their peerless cocoon of pristine studio production when they moved back east. That was after recording 1977’s superb Aja , the album that announced their ever-greater exploration of jazz influences. Fans and critics of the band both used the same word about them, perfectionism: some as a compliment, others as an accusation. But 1980’s equally impressive Gaucho was their yacht rock masterpiece.

Ripple effect

In such a subjective phrase, other artists seen by some as yacht rock representatives, such as Daryl Hall & John Oates, Journey, the Eagles, or even Canada’s Gordon Lightfoot, are thought by others to be creatively or geographically inappropriate, or just too mainstream to break out of the overreaching AOR terminology.

But a significant number of other artists, whose names are less quoted today, had their finest hours during the pop landscape of the late 70s and early 80s that we’ve been visiting here. Amy Holland won a Best New Artist Grammy nomination in 1981 helped by “How Do I Survive,” written by McDonald, whose wife she became soon afterwards. Robbie Dupree, a Brooklyn boy by birth, also epitomized the style with his 1980 US hit “Steal Away.” Then, in 1982, America, the band known for their definitive harmonic rock of a decade earlier, mounted a chart return with the suitably melodic “You Can Do Magic.”

The final word goes to Michael McDonald, the unwitting co-founder of the yacht rock sound. When the aforementioned mockumentary series was at the height of its popularity, he was asked if he had ever owned a yacht, and replied (perhaps disappointingly) in the negative. But, he added, “I thought Yacht Rock was hilarious. And uncannily, you know, those things always have a little bit of truth to them.

“It’s kind of like when you get a letter from a stalker who’s never met you. They somehow hit on something, and you have to admit they’re pretty intuitive.”

Listen to the Soft Rock Forever playlist for more yacht rock classics .

October 28, 2019 at 8:42 pm

if you dig this sound, you gotta check out Yachty by Nature the best yacht rock band on the West Coast. They play it all live without the backing tracks (yuck) that some bands do. They just got voted #1 Best Live Cover Band in Orange County and spreading yacht rock all over the country. Dive in!!! #yachtrock https://yachtybynature.com

October 28, 2019 at 8:44 pm

BTW, great article!!!!! Well written and thoughtfully addressed the idea of Nyacht Rock artists to the purists following the genre!

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The Bizarre History Of Yacht Rock Music

Popular music has always been complex. Different musical styles break up into infinite sub-genres — what started off as rock 'n' roll has splintered into dozens of sub-genres, and even the considerably younger musical genre of rap has splintered into several distinct styles. And each of those sub-genres then splinters as musicians innovate and reinvent the form.

None of this is science, though, so it's easy to get lost down rabbit holes when discussing what bands or songs belong in what genre or sub-genre. Yacht rock is a perfect example: None of the artists currently considered to be yacht rockers called themselves that at the time or were even aware that they were carving out a distinct sub-genre of rock music. The whole idea of yacht rock is a modern invention — and yet it perfectly describes a specific type of music that ruled pop culture roughly between 1975 and 1985.

What was yacht rock? It's a soft rock musical style, sometimes called the California sound, exemplified by smoothness and melody — these weren't exactly bangers, but that doesn't mean they were bad. Yacht rock could be very musically complex, incorporating elements of jazz into their compositions. The songs were usually introspective and did not engage with politics or current events at all — they were frictionless. Imagine a wealthy white man sailing on his yacht in 1980, and the music he's listening to in your imagination is what we're talking about. Here's the bizarre history of yacht rock.

The term was coined in 2005

Although the roots of yacht rock arguably go back to the 1960s, the history of yacht rock begins in 2005. That's because prior to that year, the term and concept of yacht rock simply didn't exist.

According to Rolling Stone , it all began on June 26, 2005, when the 12-episode web series "Yacht Rock" was released by Channel 101. As explained by Mental Floss , the series was a lovingly mocking look back at the smooth music of the late 1970s and early 1980s, written and directed by J.D. Ryznar, produced David B. Lyons and Hunter D. Stair, and hosted by Steve Huey, a former editor at AllMusic. MasterClass notes that the series was fictional — it depicted rockers like Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald as a bunch of goofy friends hanging out and composing the smoothest rock music possible.

Ryznar and company were making gentle fun of those soft rock musicians, but the concept of yacht rock was so obviously appropriate it became viral. They defined it as perfectly produced, with a high level of musicianship and harmonic sophistication (in fact, far from being bad music, many yacht rock songs have been sampled numerous times by modern artists ), and imbued with the vibe and sound of 1970s Los Angeles. Although many yacht rock songs do have nautical references, it's not necessary to be considered yacht rock. 

The roots of yacht rock go back to the 1960s

Although not all yacht rock songs reference the ocean, yachts, or the beach, the distant roots of the sound and the vibe go back to 1961. That's the year The Beach Boys was formed. As noted by Jacobin Magazine , the cheerful fun in the sun beach aesthetic of The Beach Boys' sound provides the fundamental template for yacht rock's sound. What elevated The Beach Boys was the songwriting craft of Brian Wilson — without his subtle genius, all that was left was the perfect production standards and sunny vibe. As noted by Warm 106.9 , the band's classic song "Sloop John B" is often cited as a clear influence on the sailing-obsessed soft rock that hit the charts a decade later.

In fact, as noted by MeTV , The Beach Boys' 1973 song "Sail On, Sailor" is considered a proto-yacht rock song. Because it was co-written by troubled musical genius Brian Wilson, the song isn't really yacht rock, but it holds many of the seeds, from its perfect production to the jazzy complexity hidden under mellow good-time vibes. And everything came full circle in 1988 when The Beach Boys released their Number One hit, "Kokomo," a song Stereogum describes as "extremely boring and self-satisfied yacht-rock." Singer Mark McGrath cites "Kokomo" as probably the last legitimate yacht rock song to ever be released.

Two foundational groups form

It wasn't just the California vibe and sailing imagery that yacht rock took from The Beach Boys. As noted by The Guardian , in the mid-1960s, a man named Daryl Dragon began playing keyboards with The Beach Boys as a backup musician. Dragon had a habit of wearing a ship captain's hat as part of his on-stage costume, underscoring the nautical theme and earning him the nickname "The Captain." According to Jacobin Magazine , Toni Tennille also toured with The Beach Boys. Dragon and Tennille married and, a few years later, formed the group Captain & Tennille, whose Grammy-winning song "Love Will Keep Us Together" is considered one of the earliest yacht rock hits.

Meanwhile, another foundational yacht rock band formed in 1972: Steely Dan . According to  The Seattle Times , part of what defines yacht rock is the people involved. Members of The Doobie Brothers  – especially Michael McDonald, Toto , and Steely Dan tend to be involved in some capacity (songwriting, background vocals, or performing) on most yacht rock songs. This was the inspiration for the original comedy sketch that birthed the whole concept . Steely Dan came to define the perfect production, jazzy musicality, and smooth melody lines of the genre. And as noted by Mental Floss , Steely Dan shared session musicians with many of their musical genre peers, explaining the somewhat similar sound produced by these different groups.

Loggins and Messina broke up in 1976

Many of the pieces that would form yacht rock existed long before the genre coalesced into a recognizable sound and vibe. Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina formed Loggins & Messina in 1971, and according to The Chicago Tribune , their 1975 album "Full Sail" is part of yacht rock legend. The album's cover art depicts Loggins and Messina on an actual yacht, looking pretty relaxed and very California. The album was held up at the very beginning of the "Yacht Rock" series to demonstrate what the creators of the series were talking about.

Loggins & Messina are crucial to the yacht rock story because they broke up. As noted by The Seattle Times , one of the features of yacht rock is the loose collaborations between a small group of musicians — and Kenny Loggins is a key member of that group. Loggins wrote many yacht rock classics recorded and performed by other artists, and Loggins himself often released his own versions of songs he gave to other artists, increasing his influence over the genre.

Loggins, now a free agent, worked with Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers several times as the core yacht rock musicians collaborated freely, ensuring a certain uniformity of sound and style that resulted in a recognizable sub-genre.

Steely Dan releases Aja

Mention the band Steely Dan in conjunction with the concept of yacht rock, and many people will have a passionate reaction . Yacht rock is often erroneously believed to be bad music and is frequently conflated with soft rock. But the opposite is true: According to MasterClass , part of what defines yacht rock is the harmonic sophistication and jazz influences of the music. In other words, yacht rock was often composed and recorded at a very high level of musical ability.

That's where Steely Dan comes in. Famed for their complex arrangements and overt jazz influences, the band produced smooth, melodic songs that perfectly captured the late-1970s California vibe. Rolling Stone  considered the band's sixth studio album, "Aja," a pinnacle for the musical genre. The songs are intricate, the production is pristine, and the mood is mellow. Decider  was even more enthusiastic in their praise, establishing the album as essential listening to any fan of yacht rock and notes that by the time Steely Dan (Walter Becker and Donald Fagan) recorded "Aja" they weren't really a band — they were two guys with a lot of session musicians, musicians who often played on other yacht rock bands' recordings, resulting in a similar sound on many of these records. And Michael McDonald of The Doobie Brothers even sings backup on some songs.

U ltimate Classic Rock ranks one of the songs from the "Aja,"  "Peg," as the second-best yacht rock song of all time and describes "Aja" as having "impeccable airtightness that falls somewhere between soft pop and jazz."

The Doobie Brothers release What a Fool Believes

Movements in music and the evolution of sub-genres usually have deep roots that go back invisibly into the past. But they often also have a key moment that clearly marks their beginning. As noted by Mental Floss , for yacht rock, that beginning comes in 1978 with the release of "What a Fool Believes" by The Doobie Brothers.

The song was written by Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. Not only did this song kick off the habit of collaboration between the artists that came to define this genre —  IGN pegs it as number three on its list of the best yacht rock songs, describing the song as quirky and mellow, while according to  Smooth Radio , the song is the ultimate example of what makes a yacht rock song. The song was a massive hit for The Doobie Brothers, one of the few non-disco hits that year.

The song is considered so "yachty," in fact, that according to Houstonia Magazine , the "Yacht Rock" series that defined the musical genre kicks off with an episode spoofing the writing of the song. The song is, indeed, kind of the platonic ideal of a yacht rock song: It's musically complex, smooth as heck, and lyrically focused on a lovelorn fool, a frequent topic of yacht rock songs. And, of course, it involves Loggins and McDonald.

Rupert Holmes releases Escape (The Piña Colada Song)

M ark McGrath , the lead singer of Sugar Ray, calls "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes the ultimate yacht rock song and an inspiration for all future yacht rock songs to follow. The song's connection to the genre is so clear that ABC News reports it was chosen for inclusion in the "NOW That's What I Call Yacht Rock" compilation album.

It's easy to see why the song (and the album containing it, 1979's "Partners in Crime") is what a computer algorithm would create if tasked with composing a yacht rock song. As noted by Rolling Stone , Holmes displays the musicianship of Steely Dan while singing with the exuberance of Barry Manilow. That combination of mellow, smooth delivery and complex song arrangements, and a distinctly California vibe make this an iconic example of yacht rock. As MasterClass notes, the song's clean production links it to other yacht rock songs because it eliminates mistakes or rough spots and offers the illusion of smooth perfection.

The song is also one of the most enduring and well-known yacht rock songs of all time. If you're trying to explain yacht rock to someone, this is the song to use as an example.

The high point of yacht rock: Christopher Cross releases Sailing

The unquestioned high point of yacht rock came in 1980. Songs from bands associated with this genre of music had been big hits before, but that year a yacht rock album dominated pop culture, ensuring that this style of music would be remembered and defined decades later. We're talking about, of course,  "Sailing" by Christopher Cross .

U ltimate Classic Rock reports the song was a smash hit, earning Cross several Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Arrangement. Its yacht rock cred begins with its title and themes — it's literally about sailing, presumably on some sort of yacht (Cross doesn't seem the type to sail on anything less). The song is smooth as glass but extremely complex, combining strings, open-tuned arpeggios, and what Rolling Stone calls "an elegant pop classicism." And as Jacobin Magazine notes, the song features backing vocals from none other than the artistic glue that holds the genre together, Michael McDonald.

"Sailing," and the album it hailed from, remain the most successful examples of yacht rock, a pinnacle of sales and awards both Cross and the genre never managed again. No one knew they were part of the yacht rock movement at the time or that it was all (slowly) downhill from there.

Toto ties it all together

One of the characteristics of yacht rock, as noted by Mental Floss , is the extremely high level of musicianship on the records — largely due to the use of professional session musicians that were shared by yacht rock groups like Steely Dan. In the late 1970s, some of those session musicians decided to form their own band, and Toto was born. This was a key moment: As noted by the man who helped define yacht rock, J.D. Ryznar, one way to identify a yacht rock song is to ask if members of Toto played on it.

In 1982, Toto released "Toto IV," which Smooth Radio noted contains two all-time yacht rock classics in "Rosanna" and "Africa." Vinyl Me, Please calls "Toto IV" a perfect introduction to the musical genre, which makes sense since the members of Toto were involved in so many recordings we now consider to be yacht rock.

But Toto was involved in another project in 1982, one that proves how the yacht rock sound traveled through session musicians: Michael Jackson's "Thriller." As reported by NOW Magazine , Toto was heavily involved with the album, and Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro even contributed a classic yacht rock track that became the fifth Top Ten song from the album (per Rolling Stone ): "Human Nature." Porcaro originally wrote it for Toto but accidentally included it on a tape of demos for producer Quincy Jones — who immediately loved it.

Kokomo: Yacht rock's last gasp

The heyday of this musical genre was between roughly 1975 and 1985. By the late 1980s, musical tastes had shifted, and most yacht rockers found themselves fading off the charts. But there was one final gasp of the genre in 1988 when the legendary band The Beach Boys released their No.1 hit  on the Billboard Hot 100, "Kokomo." 

Despite its success, the song is widely hated ( Mel Magazine shared their extreme dislike for the song and even Mike Love), but it's definitely a yacht rock song. According to Sugar Ray lead singer Mark McGrath , it's likely the last yacht rock song to be released. By the time The Beach Boys began working on it, however, they weren't too concerned about quality — as noted by EW.com , the band hadn't been on the charts in years, didn't have a record contract, and had been reduced to playing Oldies tours to pay the bills. The band accepted the invitation to contribute a song to the soundtrack of the Tom Cruise and Elisabeth Shue romantic comedy,  "Cocktail"  largely for the money and actually left the composition of the song to John Phillips, Scott McKenzie, and Terry Melcher, giving the song the traditional session-player touch of all yacht rock songs.

The song's yacht rock bona-fides are pretty clear — in fact, as Stereogum notes,  the original demo makes its yacht rock roots very, very clear. But even The Beach Boys' version with its earworm chorus retains the smooth, slickly-produced sound that marks all yacht rock tunes.

The resurgence of yacht rock

After being established as a distinct genre of music by the " Yacht Rock" web series in 2005 , yacht rock enjoyed a period of viral fame. Everyone who came across the term quickly realized it actually made sense to regard these songs as a specific style of soft rock, and there was a lot of buzz around the topic. But all buzz fades, and after a few years, yacht rock was no longer an exciting new idea — it was an accepted truth.

But in recent years, the genre has made a comeback, infiltrating pop culture for the second time. A seminal moment in this comeback was the release of "The Blue Jean Committee" in 2018. As noted by 100.9 The Eagle , "The Blue Jean Committee" is a "mockumentary" that has actually served as an introduction to yacht rock for a whole new generation of people. Esquire reports that the show (and the "fake yacht rock band" at its center) was created by comedians Fred Armisen and Bill Hader for their TV series "Documentary Now!" But they went as far as actually writing songs for the band — and even made a music video showcasing the very yacht rocky song "Catalina Breeze," eventually releasing an entire EP, according to Wired . Suddenly, yacht rock was on everyone's mind again, more than 15 years after the initial phenomenon and more than 40 years since the actual musical era ended.

Yacht rock is modern again

As noted by The Guardian , yacht rock is experiencing a full-on reappraisal. Long considered to be trite and boring, emblematic of the insincere late 1970s and early 1980s era, a new appreciation for the very things that make these songs yacht rock is developing. One key reason is that clear production noted by MasterClass  — yacht rock songs sound timeless and still slap today because they weren't thrown together. The bands spent a lot of time and money and care to make every song sound amazing, which has helped them pass the test of time. And recent years have seen bands like The Yacht Rock Revue achieve surprising success in the genre, as noted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution .

As InsideHook notes, the rise of Internet culture has helped people rediscover and appreciate yacht rock. Younger generations have grown up in a world where they can listen to anything, any time they want. The result has been a softening of genre edges, and the adoption of old, outdated musical trends. There's a whole new group of soft rock bands that aren't covering yacht rock songs; they're writing new ones.

And as reported by MTV , yacht rock original gangsters are also releasing new music, proving that the genre has fresh legs. According to NPR , in 2017, Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald collaborated with bassist and singer Thundercat on the song "Show You the Way."  Suffice it to say, this ship (or should we say yacht?) is still sailing. 

If the Yacht Is a Rockin': Riding the Yacht Rock Nostalgia Wave

It’s not often that an entire genre of music gets retconned into existence after being parodied by a web series, but that’s exactly what happened after writer, director, and producer J.D. Ryznar and producers David B. Lyons and Hunter D. Stair launched the Channel 101 web series Yacht Rock in 2005. Hosted by former AllMusic editor “Hollywood” Steve Huey, the series was a loving sendup of the late '70s/early '80s smooth jams to which many Millennials and late period Gen-Xers were likely conceived.

The yacht rock aesthetic was innovated by a core group of musicians and producers including, but not limited to, Christopher Cross, Steely Dan, Robbie Dupree, Kenny Loggins, Toto, David Foster, and hirsute soft rock titan Michael McDonald, along with scores of veteran session musicians from the Southern California studio scene.

The Yacht Rock web series was perfectly timed to coincide with a contemporary renaissance of smooth music from the late '70s, the kind that was previously considered a guilty pleasure because it fell out of fashion in the mid-'80s and was soon thereafter regarded as dated and square compared to other burgeoning genres, like punk rock and hip-hop.

Yacht Rock's Early Years

The yacht rock era began roughly around 1976, when yacht rock pillar Kenny Loggins split up with songwriting partner Jim Messina to strike out on his own. That same year, fellow yacht rock mainstay Michael McDonald joined The Doobie Brothers. The two titans of the genre joined forces when Loggins co-wrote the definitive yacht rock hit “What a Fool Believes” with McDonald for the Doobies. They collaborated several times during this era, which was par for the course with such an incestuous music scene that was largely comprised of buddies playing on each other’s albums.

"Look at who performed on the album and if they didn’t perform with any other yacht rock hit guys then chances are [it's] ‘nyacht’ rock,” Ryznar said on the  Beyond Yacht Rock podcast, referencing the pejorative term frequently used to describe soft rock songs that just miss the boat.

"The basic things to ask yourself if you want to know if a track is yacht rock are: Was it released from approximately 1976 to 1984? Did musicians on the track play with Steely Dan? Or Toto?," Ryznar said. "Is it a top 40 radio hit or is it on an album meant to feature hits?" And, of course, does the song celebrate a certain breezy, SoCal aesthetic?

Building the Boat

There are certain key ingredients necessary for a track to be considered yacht rock. For starters, it helps (though is not necessary) to have album art or lyrics that specifically reference boating, as with Christopher Cross's landmark 1980 hit “Sailing.” The music itself is usually slickly produced with clean vocals and a focus on melody over beat. But above all else, the sound has to be smooth . That’s what sets yacht rock apart from "nyacht" rock.

"Its base is R&B, yet it’s totally whitewashed," Ryznar explained on  Beyond Yacht Rock . "There [are] jazz elements. There can be complex, challenging melodies; the solos are all cutting-edge and really interesting. There’s always something interesting about a true yacht rock song. It goes left when you expect it to go right."

Yacht rock’s complex musicianship can be attributed, in part, to the session players on each track. Musicians like percussionist Steve Gadd, guitarist and Toto founding member Steve Lukather, and Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro don’t have much in the way of name recognition among casual soft rock listeners, but they’re the nails that hold the boat together. Steely Dan, “the primordial ooze from which yacht rock emerged,” according to Ryznar, famously cycled through dozens of session musicians while recording their 1980 seminal yacht rock album Gaucho .

"These musicians were not only these slick, polished professionals, but they were highly trained and able to hop from style to style with ease,” Huey explained on  Beyond Yacht Rock . “Very versatile.”

In Greg Prato’s 2018 tome, The Yacht Rock Book : An Oral History of the Soft, Smooth Sounds of the 70s and 80s , Huey broke down “the three main defining elements of yacht rock,” explaining that it requires “Fusing softer rock with jazz and R&B, very polished production, and kind of being centered around the studio musician culture in southern California … It’s not just soft rock, it’s a specific subset of soft rock that ideally has those elements."

Soft rock untethered

Whereas the music of the late 1970s and early ‘80s is often associated with the anti-establishment music of punk pioneers like the Dead Kennedys and the socially conscious songs being written by early hip-hop innovators like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, yacht rock is the antithesis of the counterculture.

Yacht rock occupies a world that is completely apolitical and untethered to current events. Between the oil crisis, a global recession, and inflation—not to mention the fact that the U.S. was still licking its wounds from the loss of the Vietnam War and the disgrace of Watergate—the late '70s were a dark time for Americans. Yet yacht rock, at its heart, is a tequila sunrise for the soul, whisking the listener away to a world where they have the time, and the means, to idle away the hours sipping piña coladas at sea while decked out in flowy Hawaiian shirts and boat shoes.

Yacht rock was never edgy, nor did it ever feel dangerous. Yacht rock didn’t piss off anyone’s parents and no one ever threatened to send their kid to boot camp for getting caught listening to Kenny Loggins's “This Is It.” Yacht rock tracks are more of a siren song that invite your parents to join in on the chorus anytime they hear Toto’s "Rosanna."

Yacht rock songs are meant to set the soundtrack to a life where the days are always sunny, but as Ryznar pointed out on Beyond Yacht Rock , there’s “an underlying darkness”—just not the kind that’s going to derail a day of sailing to Catalina Island. No, yacht rock has elements of low-stakes heartbreak with sensitive male protagonists lamenting their own foolishness in trying to get back together with exes or hitting on women half their age.

The aspirational aspect of the genre dovetailed nicely with the overarching materialism defining the Reagan era. “Yacht rock was an escape from blunt truths, into the melodic, no-calorie lies of ‘buy now, pay never,’ in which any discord could be neutralized with a Moog beat,” Dan O’Sullivan wrote in Jacobin .

Some Like it Yacht

Although the cult comedy series Yacht Rock ceased production in 2010, the soft rock music revival it launched into the zeitgeist is still going strong. For the past few years, SiriusXM has been running a yacht rock station during prime boating season, or what those of us without bottomless checking accounts refer to as the spring and summer months. Yacht rock tribute acts like Yacht Rock Revue are profitable business endeavors as much as they are fun party bands. There’s also a glut of yacht rock-themed song compilations for sale and a proliferation of questionably curated genre playlists on Spotify.

Whether you believe yacht rock is an exalted art form or the insidious soundtrack to complacency, any music lover would probably agree that even a momentary escape from the blunt truths of life is something we could all use every now and then.

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What a Fool Believes Edition

How Yacht Rock, a genre invented in the ’00s, gave a name to the smooth West Coast music of the ’70s and ’80s.

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Episode Notes

This episode was released in August 2020 exclusively for Slate Plus listeners. As of August 2021, it’s available for non-subscribers.

In the late ’70s and early ’80s, a scene and a sound cropped up on the West Coast: polished, perfectionist studio musicians who generated sleek, jazzy, R&B-flavored music. About a quarter-century later, this sound was given a name: Yacht Rock. The inventors of the genre name weren’t thinking about boats … well, unless the song was Christopher Cross’s “Sailing.” Yacht Rock was meant to signify deluxe, yuppified, “smooth” music suitable for playing on luxury nautical craft.

Whatever you call it, this music really did command the charts at the turn of the ’80s: from Steely Dan to George Benson, Michael McDonald to Kenny Loggins, Toto to … Michael Jackson?! Believe it: Even Thriller is partially a Yacht Rock album. This month, Hit Parade breaks down what Yacht Rock was and how it took over the charts four decades ago—from the perfectionism of “Peg,” to the bounce of “What a Fool Believes,” to the epic smoothness of “Africa.”

Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch.

About the Show

Chris Molanphy, a pop-chart analyst and author of Slate’s “Why Is This Song No. 1?” series, tells tales from a half-century of chart history. Through storytelling, trivia, and song snippets, Chris dissects how that song you love—or hate—dominated the airwaves, made its way to the top of the charts, and shaped your memories forever.

Chris Molanphy is a feature writer and critic who writes widely about music and the pop charts.

• @cmolanphy on Twitter

Toto Talks ‘Toto’ to Celebrate Their Debut Album’s 45th Anniversary

Al Melchior

Updated: 

Now that the L.A.-based rock band Toto has been back in the cultural zeitgeist the last few years, they often get reduced to a single image. They are thought of as studio hotshots. Or as “yacht rockers.” Or as the band that gave us “Africa,” before Stranger Things and Weezer put it back in our collective consciousness.

Videos by American Songwriter

With their debut album reaching the 45th anniversary of its release on October 15, 2023, it’s time to recognize that the band is much more than any of that. A revisiting of the first Toto album is a good reminder of this. It was a hit record that defied easy categorization and seamlessly blended a variety of moods and genres. It’s a rare feat in rock, but Toto were able to pull it off because of the vision and leadership of David Paich and the late Jeff Porcaro, and of what each member brought to the band.

Four of the original six members of Toto—Paich, Porcaro and his younger brother, Steve, and Steve Lukather—knew each other growing up in Los Angeles, and they, along with David Hungate, had worked with Boz Scaggs. Each member had a healthy résumé before coming together to form Toto, with Paich and Jeff Porcaro being particularly prolific in the mid-’70s. Paich wrote or co-wrong songs for numerous artists, and his production credits included Cheryl Lynn’s self-titled album and Aretha Franklin’s “Break It to Me Gently.” Porcaro performed on Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic as a 19-year-old and drummed on all but one track of their subsequent album, Katy Lied .

It was Paich and the elder Porcaro who initially put Toto together. While Paich wrote nearly all of the songs at first, he had a vision for the band as a collaborative unit—at least where vocals were concerned.

As Paich tells American Songwriter, “The reason I modeled the band the way I did was that my heroes were The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac, who had multiple singers … And there were a lot of great groups out at the time with great backgrounds, like Boston and Foreigner.” The latter band was top-of-mind for Paich, as he had worked on their Double Vision album as a strings arranger.

Paich’s vision was manifested on Side 1 of the debut album. It begins with the instrumental “Child’s Anthem,” which he wrote when he was studying classical music at the University of Southern California. Paich says the track provided a way to open the album with a grand gesture. “I wanted to start the album off differently than [how] regular rock/pop albums are … I just wanted to say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, here we are.’ Almost like an overture.”

The next three tracks that follow—“I’ll Supply the Love,” “Georgy Porgy,” and “Manuela Run”—each features a different vocalist, with Bobby Kimball, Lukather, and Paich respectively taking the leads. On Side 2, Steve Porcaro sings lead on his laid-back composition “Takin’ It Back,” giving the album four different lead vocalists.

The first four tracks of side one are also a microcosm of the album’s sonic breadth. The classical roots of “Child’s Anthem” give it a prog sensibility, while “I’ll Supply the Love” is a straight-ahead rocker, and “Georgy Porgy” has jazz and R&B overtones. “Manuela Run,” like many of Paich’s songs, is driven by a buoyant piano melody and features soaring vocal harmonies.

“Crunchy Guitars” + “Sophisticated Grooves”

Toto’s versatility isn’t just marked by the variation in genres from track to track, but also by the blend of elements in each song. The hard-rock approach of Lukather, the band’s guitarist, was critical to Toto’s unusual fusion of sounds. As he himself put it, “I think I brought the more rock and roll element … the crunchy guitars and a little young, rock attitude to their sophisticated grooves and their jazz and classical backgrounds.” Lukather was the perfect counterpoint to the two-keyboard attack of Paich and Steve Porcaro, all of which was held together by the stellar grooves of Jeff Porcaro and Hungate.

Despite their accomplishments, Toto’s members were initially unsure if their special sound would attract a large audience. However, once “Hold the Line,” the album’s first single, started getting airplay, they began to realize they were on the verge of taking off. Paich said he and his band “were just ecstatic when we heard it over the radio. We were like teenagers … calling each other, calling the radio stations and requesting the song.”

[RELATED: The Meaning Behind “Hold the Line” by Toto]

Joe Williams, who joined Toto in 1986 and is currently in his second stint as a vocalist for the band, not only performs songs from the first Toto album in the band’s current iteration, but he was a fan of the album when it first came out. Williams’ excitement over the album was enhanced by knowing several of the band members before the album came out, even though he was still in high school. But it was his genuine love for the songs themselves that led him to listen to the album “thousands of times.”

Williams cites “You Are the Flower,” which was written by Kimball, as one of his favorite songs on the album. “We’ve performed it live in the last couple of years, and it’s one of my favorite things to perform live, to sing. It just has a lope and a great feel to it.” Though the track is one of only two not penned by Paich, it fits in with the rest of the songs, helping to establish the record’s cohesiveness.

Final Thoughts

That’s the paradox of Toto’s debut. It’s a collection of tracks written and performed in various styles, yet it has a solid consistency. Toto arrived fully-formed as a real band with a real sound and identity—not a mere hodgepodge of in-demand studio musicians. At the heart of that identity is the special way each member fits into the whole—the way that rock meets jazz, R&B, and classical to create something unique and unmistakably Toto.

Photo courtesy of Sony Music

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