Micro-post #143: A quick sort-of-review of "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"

Sometimes while working I'll put on a noise-maker of some kind, usually a playlist or a podcast, but for some reason chose to play Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary on in the background instead today. It's a so-so show, reminded me of the "documentaries" I used to watch to kill time on VH1 (think Behind the Music). I enjoyed hearing a lot of the songs they highlighted and found little tidbits here and there but overall it was kind of vapid. Instead of writing an actual review, here's some bullets I took as quick notes:

• Apparently there's a whole cottage industry around this and it's filled to the brim with cover bands with captains's hats and Hawaiian shirts. Love the music but this sounds like a kind of Hell for me...

• I liked the original Channel 101 sketches when I saw them in college but they haven't aged particularly well. Kind of feels "inside-joke with friends"-level humor. If you haven't seen them before, here's a playlist with them:

• These were really serious and impressive musicians, especially Michael McDonald and the members of Toto (who have their credits on all sorts of records!).

• It was pretty popular in the Black community, as Prince Paul explained it being people gelling to the sound and not really caring about what the musicians looked like. Questlove also noted there's a lot of Black Yacht Rock musicians as well (George Benson, The Pointer Sisters, Al Jarreau, Brenda Russell).

• Christopher Cross - for all of his soft-spokeness - was actually a wild guy. Kenny Loggins, on the other hand, was just a nerd having fun.

• Yacht Rock defined by the "Doobie bounce" from "What A Fool Believes," which Questlove calls the "best sitting-down dancing music."

• The so-called villians of the Yacht Rock comedy series (Jimmy Buffet, Hall & Oates, etc.) were all bands that are thought of as Yacht Rock artists but aren't actually and were intentionally chosen for that reason.

• Apparently Barbara Streisand and Frank Sinatra were royally pissed off when Christopher Cross beat them for Best Song ("Sailing") at the 1981 Grammys.

• MTV and music videos are primarily blamed for the "death" of Yacht Rock but the documentary also places Michael Jackson's Thriller and the popularity of new wave as culprits.

• There was also some controversy when this came out a year ago, especially from a YouTuber named Rick Beato, who really hated it and the genre's rebrand in general. Watching his reaction video feels a little like Old Man Yelling at Clouds at first but digging further, I found he really does respect most of the musicians who spoke to the documentary and has a number of his own interviews with them that are pretty interesting themselves (might even dig deeper and post other ones as future blog entries...):

• While this was definitely a fluff-piece, I don't think anyone who was interviewed by Garrett Price was being rude or sneering about, since it felt like everyone was genuine in their love of the music. Case in point being Questlove compiling a gigantic playlist for his notoriously cranky friend & Yacht Rock hater, the late Anthony Bourdin. While I've posted a number of related albums on this blog before (here and here - intentionally leaving the Steely Dan post out unless I wish to incure the wrath of Donald Fagen...), I going to repost it here since it's a really solid (and comprehensive) playlist and a good way to close out this sort-of review: