Getting Deep With ‘Yacht Rock’

When I think of the music now known as Yacht Rock, I don’t think of fancy boating and Southern California. I didn’t spend the 70s at the Troubadour on Sunset. I was eight years old in Indiana,  in the back seat of my parents’ Oldsmobile, listening to Michael McDonald against my will. Would Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary (get it?), now streaming on Max, trigger Proustian memories of fake leather seats and extreme boredom? It did not, to my pleasant surprise.

The term “Yacht Rock” came from a fairly stupid web video series, where a group of struggling LA comedians re-enacted what they imagined were the origin stories of how a certain genre of smooth, jazzy, white man pop came to be. Somehow, it ignited cultural zeitgeist and newfound appreciation of guys with moustaches and unisex haircuts. The creators of the web series offer music commentary in the film. I’m not sure how playing Kenny Loggins in a web video while not looking remotely like Kenny Loggins qualifies someone to speak authoritatively on music history, but okay.

Fortunately, the documentary also features way cooler people; in fact, some of the coolest people. Questlove and Thundercat. Prince Paul from De La Soul. An actual music scholar. And the Yacht Rockers themselves, like Toto’s Steve Lukather, who demands, “Where’s my yacht? I played on all those songs!” Justice for Steve.

I incorrectly assumed the film, executive produced by Bill Simmons and the crew at The Ringer, was going to be about drunk people in captain’s hats singing along to The Pina Colada Song. But doy, Rupert Holmes isn’t Yacht Rock. Neither is Fleetwood Mac. Or Air Supply. I don’t know what determines Yacht Rock versus Not Yacht Rock. But I’m starting to think it isn’t a scientific method.

Instead, Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary explores the deeper nuances of music we often dismiss as shallow. For example: Yacht Rock resonates with Black people, too. De La Soul sampled the riff from “Peg” for “Eye Know” because it was part of their childhood. And Questlove’s. And Thundercat’s. Michael McDonald was on Soul Train, and he wasn’t even lost. This only reinforces my theory that the cross-cultural touchstone for all 70s kids was the Doobie Brothers episode of “What’s Happening?”.

The only wrinkle in this pan-racial lovefest is the abrupt record scratch that is the video for Toto’s “Africa”. Holy crap! How did that thing even get made? What was wrong with us? The 80s were terrible. That said, “Africa” is empirically a banger. And it’s not just music, it’s math.

That’s because Yacht Rockers are musical monsters. In the film, they wax nostalgic not about the parties or the money, but about the craft. Some had classical training. Others had serious jazz chops. When they were not Yacht Rocking, they were on speed dial for Donald Fagen and Quincy Jones.

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that most great music of the 70s and 80s is zero degrees of separation from Toto. Steve Porcaro wrote a song on Thriller. It’s the Thriller song most likely to be heard in the Missus department at Dillard’s, but still. Michael McDonald once suggested to Ambrosia’s Steve Pack that he draw inspiration for chord progressions from Handl’s piano practice exercises. And it worked, because “You’re the Biggest Part of Me” still slaps. It’s said that “Steely Dan’s Aja is the primordial ooze” from which Yacht Rock emerged. I like to imagine Donald Fagen’s reaction upon hearing his production masterpiece called “ooze.”

If I had a major complaint about Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, it’s the same complaint I have about many Ringer productions: Women don’t get their due. I wanted to hear more from Brenda Russell. The late Nicolette Larson, a great artist and a Yacht Rock staple, is just a name on a flyer. There’s a mention of Stevie Nicks, who helped make Kenny Loggins famous, but that’s really it. The yacht cruise is a sausage party.

But even as a Yacht Rock cynic, I enjoyed the voyage. If there’s a seedy underbelly to Yacht Rock, it’s well hidden. If you like a few hours of people genuinely having fun and enjoying each other, check it out. If you don’t, you’re probably Donald Fagen. But for the rest of us, it’s Gilligan’s Island without the boat wreck. And more body hair.