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Yacht Rock?! Who has experience.

#201
@LBS-bass
I think it is is a bit of hijacking for fun. I was from that era as well but i am not above throwing on a Captain's hat and pretending I am at a party designed and formulated to be ridiculous. People take themselves too serious at times. Have a Pina Colada and have your face gently rocked off by the smooth easy sound of 70's\80's shmaltzy rock. IT does no harm and fills up the bar or backyard party.
YR.jpg
 
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#202
Jimmy4string said:
@LBS-bass
I think it is is a bit of hijacking for fun. I was from that era as well but i am not above throwing on a Captain's hat and pretending I am at a party designed and formulated to be ridiculous. People take themselves too serious at times. Have a Pina Colada and have your face gently rocked off by the smooth easy sound of 70's\80's shmaltzy rock. IT does no harm and fills up the bar or backyard party.
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It makes as much sense to me as labeling all hair metal "cabin rock" and dressing up in lumberjack garb to play it. Sure, might be fun, but it's a little bit disrespectful to the history of the music for those of us who were actually there. That said, do as you will; no real judgment, as I suppose life is all about whatever works for making money anyway and rebranding is what it is. But don't expect those of us who lived through that time as musicians to see much sense in it :)
 
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#204
Well, anyway, I immediately understood "yacht rock" to mean that cheesy soft-rock stuff that got slathered all over the airwaves from about 1972 to 1982. Fleetwood Mac, Doobie Brothers, Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, the Captain and Tennille, 10CC, Poco, Michael Murphey, Gerry Rafferty, Abba, Andy Gibb, Anne Murray, Barely Man-enough, David Gates, Donny and Marie, Olivia Newton-John, Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot, KC and the Sunshine Band, Hall & Oates, England Dan & John Ford Coley, Seals & Crofts, Jefferson Starship (as opposed to Airplane) and so on.

Yeah, few of the songs had anything to do with boats, and serious yacht types listened to whatever they listened to. That's not the point. The point is that this was music for people who didn't like music. Yes, great skill was used in generating and performing it, but that doesn't make it great music. Lawrence Welk and Mantovani had top-shelf players, too, you know.

It was about as disposable as all that disco stuff that was extruded out of a giant hopper somewhere in LA.

Remember when "direct to video" was a way to dismiss a B or C class movie? Well, most of this stuff was "direct to elevator". I can attest that all the young musicians I knew at the time would have pulled out all their fingernails with pliers rather than choose to play this stuff (now, if there was serious money involved, we'd have been gig whores just like anyone else...). I was there, too, you know.
 
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#206
Jimmy4string said:
@turf3 i did enjoy "direct to elevator"
:laugh:
As a old heavy metal dude from the 80's i used to hate this genre. Odd how things change in old age. This is my favorite music now most the time.
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When I was younger I thought a lot of it was schlocky :).

Now that I'm older I listen with different ears and recognize how challenging and well put-together much of it is. We definitely change with age!
 
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#208
turf3 said:
Well, anyway, I immediately understood "yacht rock" to mean that cheesy soft-rock stuff that got slathered all over the airwaves from about 1972 to 1982. Fleetwood Mac, Doobie Brothers, Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, the Captain and Tennille, 10CC, Poco, Michael Murphey, Gerry Rafferty, Abba, Andy Gibb, Anne Murray, Barely Man-enough, David Gates, Donny and Marie, Olivia Newton-John, Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot, KC and the Sunshine Band, Hall & Oates, England Dan & John Ford Coley, Seals & Crofts, Jefferson Starship (as opposed to Airplane) and so on.

Yeah, few of the songs had anything to do with boats, and serious yacht types listened to whatever they listened to. That's not the point. The point is that this was music for people who didn't like music. Yes, great skill was used in generating and performing it, but that doesn't make it great music. Lawrence Welk and Mantovani had top-shelf players, too, you know.

It was about as disposable as all that disco stuff that was extruded out of a giant hopper somewhere in LA.
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" made for people who didn't like music" man, I disagree with that statement!
 
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#213
turf3 said:
Well, the term fits, though. Imagine an overweight old guy on a Chris-Craft, wearing white shoes a silk shirt with a medallion and smoking a cigar, and a couple younger women in bikinis, attracted by money, in 1978. He's not gonna be blasting the Who, the Clash, or King Crimson; he's gonna be playing the Doobie Brothers and thinking he's really hip and cool because his hair's touching his collar and he's got "rock and roll on the hi-fi, just like those kids do". That's what "Yacht Rock" means to me.
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dayum, that is a complete image right there. NICE!
 
#215
Generally, I think you should put a bit of thought into the set and the flow of songs that sit well together.
Its all about songs and groove and where the song can go to within the makeup of the band.

Maybe its me but i see some sets that are literally just thrown together without much thought and amount to no more than what is easy and what do we know.
 
#217
Since this thread was reactivated lately and I'm seeing it for the first time ...

Partially because it's the way my mind works, and partially due to the kind of technical nature of aspects of my work I can't help but see taxonomies in things. For instance I like those music family trees.

At the risk of starting a Is It Prog-kind of debate (please let's not), my opinion is that YR is a subcategory of Soft Rock (which is pretty broad), and while Pablo Cruise, Christopher Cross and others make sense to me as YR, the Doobies, Steely Dan, or others don't. I've played the latter but not the former. But they, depending on the song choice, perfectly compliment each other in a band setting.

Though I have Hard Rock, Prog and Fusion roots that morphed to Soul, R&B and Groove, I do have a lot of regard for YR / SR, heck I grew up with it and yes it was inescapable on the radio.

I agree with a lot of comments here that this kind of music is hard to pull off right, it's just too well constructed, performed, and sung, but if done well few wouldn't like it. For me it's more about nostalgia but I'll kill to play this stuff out. I like the kind of discipline it takes to play this genre. Sadly there is already a well-established band here doing this stuff.
 
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