Yacht rock makes me think of hardcore pornography, and not simply because of the facial hair and cocaine-fueled excess. When I consider the soft-rock genre and what defines it, I immediately think of the Potter Stewart doctrine: “I know it when I see it.” Such is the case when dealing with musical genres with loose definitions.
A few years back, we went through this with emo , and right now, our friends over at Bandsplain are dealing with this with Britpop . But yacht rock adds an extra level of confusion. At least genres like emo and Britpop were named in the moment, even if those descriptors didn’t come from the musicians themselves.
Yacht rock received the moniker retroactively—decades after mellow rock’s ’70s and ’80s heyday—and in large part because of a video web series that, early on, was spread largely through Myspace. Also important to note: Sometimes yacht rock doesn’t sound like rock at all—in practice, it often more closely resembles jazz or R&B. It can get confusing, even for the people who get tagged with the label.
As John Oates, one-half of Hall & Oates, told author Greg Prato for The Yacht Rock Book , “Yacht rock to me assumes that you’re relaxing on a boat and you wear funny clothes and a captain’s hat. I really don’t even know what the hell that is.” Despite the inauspicious origins, the name has stuck, though it’s still sometimes unclear who (or what) exactly is yacht rock .
We know Toto is yacht rock, but what about the Eag.