ReviewsKatie Puckrik’s A Yacht Rock Odyssey – reviewed
By David Quantick
According to the sleeve notes for this epically-detailed boxed set, “Yacht Rock is a neologism coined decades after the music’s heyday to corral like-minded mellowness into a petting zoo of smooth.” In other words, Yacht Rock doesn’t exist. Like “freakbeat” and other genres designed to make it easier to label music, Yacht Rock is a vague, newishly-minted label that enables people to find a link between apparently unconnected records.
That said, even people who hate labels have to admit that the criteria for what constitutes Yacht Rock are fairly clear: a vague sort of jazzy pop sound, a moderately catchy chorus that leaps out at the listener like a heavily-drugged salmon, a great deal of saxophone, the soft rain of tinkly keyboards, and Michael McDonald. It’s terrifying how often Michael McDonald turns up here: as a songwriter, as a backing vocalist, and as both a solo artist and member of the Doobie Brothers, McDonald is the Zelig of Yacht Rock. It’s tempting to imagine a timeline where Michael McDonald was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and Yacht Rock never happened.
Not to set the catamaran among the pigeons, but Yacht Rock is one of the most divisive imaginary genres of all time
David Quantick
Not to set the catamaran among the pigeons, but Yacht Rock is one of the most divisive imaginary genres of all time. When I mentioned to a few people that I was writing about a Yacht Rock compilation, their reactions were to say the least strong, and involved swearing. For many people, the sweet blandness of Yacht Rock and its associations (the 1970s, cocktails, swimwear, yachts) is infuriating, and the idea that this wafting, somehow heartless music is now being celebrated instead of, say, buried in the earth’s molten core for ever, is horrific to them. It is, as the older generation say, like punk never happened. Session musicians rule the day: instead of fiery passion and musical aggression, everything is the musical equivalent of a Harvey Wallbanger – overly sweet, brightly coloured, and liable to give you a terrible hangover. “Yacht” it may be, “rock” it isn’t. It’s not soul, either, or disco, and quite
often it isn’t pop. The words are full of exhortations – ‘Move On’, ‘Hold On’, ‘Back Off’, ‘Turn Your Love Around’ – but the tunes send out the opposite message: stay still, give up, don’t move, leave your love in neutral.
Not every song is like that, of course. There are great songs here – Kool & The Gang’s ‘Too Hot’, Robert Palmer’s ‘Every Kind Of People’, Elkie Brooks’ ‘Fool If You Think It’s Over’ – but these are Yacht Rock in name only, and for many just bring to mind Albert Einstein’s famous line: if it’s good, it’s not Yacht Rock, and if it’s Yacht Rock, it’s not good. The musical range of this compilation is pretty consistent, but there are exceptions (one of which will be discussed imminently).
There’s also the faint reek of irony about Yacht Rock. Many remember the whole “guilty pleasures” trend of a few years back in which people celebrated “tacky” music from their youth in a half-genuine, half-raised-eyebrow kind of way. This was, they said, no way to consume music: if you love something, you should just love it without shame, and not be laughing at it at the same time as you are listening to it. And it’s hard not to be vexed by the legions of people with wry tears in their eyes punching the air to Leo Sayer: almost as hard, in fact, as a non-fan of this pseudo-genre to listen to an astonishing four CDs of yacht rock.
As a piece of archive, A Yacht Rock Odyssey is up there with the great 1960s garage band compilations, just substituting mellow sax for fuzz guitar
David Quantick
But as that non-fan, I am paradoxically full of admiration for this project. It is compiler Katie Puckrik’s labour of love: presenter of a radio show devoted to Yacht Rock, Puckrik knows her stuff, as you might expect from someone who’s spent her entire life working in music, from dancing on a Pet Shop Boys tour to fronting the Lust For Life tribute band to DJing and presenting radio shows. Her research for this collection is mind-boggling: there are acts from all over the world, obscure and otherwise, representing funk, soft rock, jazz and “Japanese City Pop” (genres within genres). The sleeve-notes are fantastically informative, witty and sometimes surprising (apart from the fact that ace blandsman Christopher Cross wrote ‘Ride Like The Wind’ on acid, there’s also the little-known link between Yacht Rock and serial killers). This is far from being an ironic or silly collection: it’s put together with love and knowledge, and that’s all you can ask for. As a piece of archive, A Yacht Rock Odyssey is up there with the great 1960s garage band compilations, just substituting mellow sax for fuzz guitar: it’s a Pebbles for cokeheads. 76 tracks from the sublime – Carole Bayer Sager’ ‘It’s The Falling In Love’, Boz Scaggs’ ‘Lowdown’ – to the
ridiculous…
Which brings us to the elephant in the room: well, not so much ‘elephant’ as ‘herd of freakishly large mutant space dino-mammoths” and not so “room” as “very small box.” The track that rises above the others like Olympus above the Serengeti. A song so big that it encompasses an entire continent.
‘Africa’, by Toto.
Calling ‘Africa’ a “Yacht Rock” song is like calling Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ a folk song. It’s like calling The Beatles a Merseybeat group. It’s accurate, but also it doesn’t begin to even hint at the enormousness of the thing. ‘Africa’ isn’t Yacht Rock. If you played ‘Africa’ on an actual yacht, the yacht would explode, taking with it the entire Caribbean Sea and most of Florida. Next to some needle fluff like, say, Michael Sembello’s ‘Lay Back (Menage A Trois)’, ‘Africa’ is a mindless behemoth of a song, crushing everything in its path. Which is probably why it’s been placed, sensibly, at the end of CD1, where it both acts as a powerful finale and also is liable to cause the least amount of damage. Puckrik devotes a whole page of her sleeve-notes to ‘Africa’, detailing both its extraordinary renaissance in the 21st century and what she calls its lyrical “clunkiness.” She makes a great case for ‘Africa”s emotional
resonance to a new generation, and points out that Toto thought it was “the weirdest song they ever did” (listening to Toto’s other, equally thrilling but marginally more unimaginative soupfests, you can see their point).
And so ‘Africa’ stands over its charges, like a lion king sworn to protect a lot of, I don’t know, cocktail monkeys and giraffes made of Doritos, safe in the knowledge that, like it or not, Yacht Rock has been anthologised, archived, and praised, definitively.
A Yacht Rock Odessey was reviewed by David Quantick. It’s released on Friday 30 August 2024, via Demon Music.
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Katie Puckrik
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Tracklisting
A Yacht Rock Odessey Various Artists /
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CD1 LUXURY YACHT
Some of the most beloved West Coast classics this side of Malibu.
- Christopher Cross / Ride Like The Wind [45 Version]
- Starbuck / Moonlight Feels Right
- George Benson / Turn Your Love Around
- Carly Simon / You Belong To Me
- Kenny Loggins / This Is It
- Raydio / You Can’t Change That
- Average White Band / Whatcha Gonna Do for Me
- Bobby Caldwell / What You Won’t Do For Love
- Boz Scaggs / Lowdown [Single Version]
- Robbie Dupree / Steal Away
- Al Jarreau / Mornin’
- Pablo Cruise / What’cha Gonna Do?
- Gino Vannelli / People Gotta Move
- Ace / How Long
- Stephen Bishop / Save It For A Rainy Day
- The Pointer Sisters / He’s So Shy
- Steve Winwood / Valerie (original 1982 recording)
- Player / Baby Come Back
- Chaka Khan / Through The Fire [45 Version]
- Toto / Africa
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CD 2 SIRENS OF THE SEA
Female singer-songwriters and interpreters who broadened the palette of Yacht Rock.
- Olivia Newton-John / Magic
- Nicolette Larson / Lotta Love
- Laura Allan / Opening Up To You
- Carole Bayer Sager / It’s The Falling In Love
- Carly Simon / It Keeps You Runnin’
- Curved Air / Touch Of Tequila
- Lauren Wood / Save The Man
- Samantha Sang / Emotion
- Rajie / Last Chance
- Evie Sands / Lady Of The Night
- Maria Muldaur / Open Your Eyes
- Holly Near / Back Off
- Kiki Dee / Love Is A Crazy Feeling
- Akiko Yano / Telephone Line
- Diane Tell / Tes Yeux
- Wendy Waldman / Cold Back On Me
- Karla Bonoff / Someone To Lay Down Beside
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CD 3: DEEP DIVE
Shining a light on rare Yacht treasures.
- Maxus / Nobody’s Business
- Toto / Georgy Porgy
- Average White Band / Isn’t It Strange
- Greg Guidry / Show Me Your Love
- Dane Donahue / Freedom
- Randy Crawford / That’s How Heartaches Are Made
- Paul Anka / Walk A Fine Line
- Robbie Dupree / Brooklyn Girls
- Little Feat / Red Streamliner
- Robert Palmer / Every Kinda People
- Larsen-Feiten Band / Who’ll Be The Fool Tonight
- Lake / Key To The Rhyme [Album Version]
- Leo Sayer / Easy To Love
- Amy Holland / How Do I Survive
- Pages / The Sailor’s Song
- Airplay / Nothin’ You Can Do About It
- Bill Champlin / Keys To The Kingdom
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CD 4: NIGHT SAIL
A smoochy set to keep you and the moon company.
- The Jones Girls / Nights Over Egypt
- Michael McDonald / I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)
- Grover Washington Jr. And Bill Withers / Just The Two Of Us
- Kenny Rankin / Creepin’
- Steve Winwood / Hold On
- Chicago / Wishing You Were Here
- Lonette McKee / Maybe There Are Reasons
- Ned Doheny / Get It Up For Love
- Loggins & Messina / Move On
- JD Souther / Midnight Prowl
- Michael Sembello / Lay Back (Menage À Trois)
- Robert Palmer / Give Me An Inch
- Kool & The Gang / Too Hot
- Pousette-Dart / Band Winterness
- Bernie Leadon / Glass Off
- Steve Miller Band / Sacrifice
- Christopher Cross / Sailing
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CD1 LUXURY YACHT
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By david quantick
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