YACHT ROCK..... The Movie!!!

Can they do that? They can’t do it! They shouldn’t. I guess they did it. I’m not going to watch it. Ok. I’ll probably watch it. But, I’m not going to tell anyone I watched it. Wait a minute. Did I write that last part out loud? Never mind.
 
BBC made a documentary series in 2019 called "I Can Go For That: The Smooth World Of Yacht Rock." It's on YT.

Part 1


Part 2
 
jrockbridge said:
BBC made a documentary series in 2019 called "I Can Go For That: The Smooth World Of Yacht Rock." It's on YT.

Part 1


Part 2
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Even though it was made by the BBC they had to get an American to present as no-one in the UK had a fucking clue what they were talking about :embarrassed:
 
I watched “I can go for that that: The Smooth World Of Yacht Rock.” It was ok. I learned that the only band in the genre I paid attention to was Steely Dan. The rest were bands and songs that I heard on the radio but had no interest in following. In particular, I recall hearing a lot of Hall & Oats on the radio and it was not my thing. I used to make up funny lyrics to their songs along the lines of the things Weird Al would do.

I have enjoyed Live At Daryl’s House. I hold no grudge against Yacht Rock bands or the artists.

I listened to Punk, Post Punk, Prog Rock, Classic Rock bands, etc, during the Yacht Rock period. So, it makes sense that soft rock was not really on my radar.

I’ll watch the HBO documentary. But, it will mostly remind me of music I heard on the radio but had no interest in pursuing.
 
I grew up when it was called soft rock as I am from that era.

Calling it Yacht rock is just another generic term to classify it in a different generation.

What is the difference between soft rock and yacht rock?

Yacht rock is a genre of music made between 1976 and 1984 in Southern California. It is a mellow kind of soft rock that often has a high level of musicality encompassing elements of rock, jazz, and rhythm and blues. Typical yacht rock is more musical than lyrical, and it has more electric piano than acoustic guitar.

The term yacht rock was coined in 2005 by the makers of the online video series Yacht Rock, who connected the music with the popular Southern Californian leisure activity of boating. It was considered a pejorative term by some music critics.

As Roger Daultry says: Talking about my generation!!!

Also I may currently live in SoCal but not a native.
 
Modern Saint said:
I grew up when it was called soft rock as I am from that era.

Calling it Yacht rock is just another generic term to classify it in a different generation.
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Yeah, to me Yacht Rock is a specific subset with all of those groovy studio cats like McDonald, Lukather, Christopher Cross, etc. When you get "soft rock" it has Air Supply or Barry Manilow... neither of which I would put in that Yachting category.
 
To me it was just another variety of radio pop that I ignored for the most part but couldn't really avoid.
I was a Bluegrass Boy and Deadhead thru that era. When that stuff was popular Id already ditched FM radio.
But I dont really think of Steely Dan in the same way as Cross or McDonald.
They were much a more sneakily subversive 70s phenomenon to me.
 
baimun said:
Yeah, to me Yacht Rock is a specific subset with all of those groovy studio cats like McDonald, Lukather, Christopher Cross, etc. When you get "soft rock" it has Air Supply or Barry Manilow... neither of which I would put in that Yachting category.
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My generation calls that mellow music back in our days. Never really considered Manilow or Air Supply rock, just pop like Taylor Swift.
 
baimun said:
Says the generation that gave "Jethro Tull" a "Heavy Metal" Grammy. :helper:
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The category was Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Vocal or Instrumental Performance. Most people expected Metallica to win because they were a popular Heavy Metal band at the time. Their music was getting airplay on radio and was charting well. Jethro Tull won for the song “Steel Monkey” which peaked at 84 on the charts and only stayed in top 100 for 4 weeks.

Heavy Horses is a favorite Jethro Tull album of mine with a mix of acoustic and electric instruments. But, Ian Anderson is not the first singer to come to mind when considering great vocal performances and flute heavy rock is not particularly hard rock music in my book.

The controversy caused the Grammys to make 2 separate categories for Hard Rock and Metal the following year. In 1990, Metallica won a Grammy for “One.”

(Edit) I never listened to the Jethro Tull album “Crest Of A Knave.” I was unfamiliar with the song “Steel Monkey.” By contrast, I listened to a lot of Metallica’s album “And Justice For All” from roughly the same time period. I just listened to “Steel Monkey.” It’s fair to call it a Hard Rock song for that time (no flute) but neither the song, nor the vocal performance, were worthy of a Grammy IMO.
 
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jrockbridge said:
The category was Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Vocal or Instrumental Performance. Most people expected Metallica to win because they were a popular Heavy Metal band at the time. Their music was getting airplay on radio and was charting well. Jethro Tull won for the song “Steel Monkey” which peaked at 84 on the charts and only stayed in top 100 for 4 weeks.

Heavy Horses is a favorite Jethro Tull album of mine with a mix of acoustic and electric instruments. But, Ian Anderson is not the first singer to come to mind when considering great vocal performances and flute heavy rock is not particularly hard rock music in my book.

The controversy caused the Grammys to make 2 separate categories for Hard Rock and Metal the following year. In 1990, Metallica won a Grammy for “One.”

(Edit) I never listened to the Jethro Tull album “Crest Of A Knave.” I was unfamiliar with the song “Steel Monkey.” By contrast, I listened to a lot of Metallica’s album “And Justice For All” from roughly the same time period. I just listened to “Steel Monkey.” It’s fair to call it a Hard Rock song for that time (no flute) but neither the song, nor the vocal performance, were worthy of a Grammy IMO.
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To add onto this, at the time Hard Rock/Heavy Metal was new so many of those bands fell under that moniker. Even Rush who today is defined as Prog Rock was under the HR/HM title.

Today there are so many subdivisions that are a newly created just to categorize a type of music. The best yet is today's Heavy Metal is not what was back in the 70's/80's. I mean Hair Metal? Back in the 80's it was just Heavy Metal or the NWoBHM
 
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