Growing up, I was always a bit of an “odd duck.” My interests were usually a little different from many of the kids I knew, and that included my taste in music. When I was in elementary school and junior high school, they were listening to the typical Top 40 fare — usually whatever was being heavily promoted at the moment. In the 70s the trend was mainly toward disco, so my classmates were bonkers over Donna Summer, KC and the Sunshine Band. Some of them were chanting “S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y … Night!” with the Bay City Rollers, and others were more rebellious and sketched the KISS logo on their notebooks in honor of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. In middle and high school, the musical choices got a little cooler. Most of my friends loved Foreigner, and my more musically savvy classmates were into Rush. (I have to admit I do enjoy a little “Tom Sawyer,” “YYZ” and “Red Barchetta” myself.)

Again, I was the odd duck. I was always a sucker for the sappy love songs, but most of my listening was devoted to artists like the Doobie Brothers, Toto, Earth, Wind & Fire, Chicago and Pablo Cruise. When Christopher Cross released his first album, I played it on a loop. My brother was a big influence. He had the 8-track for Toto’s debut album, and it was through him that I discovered Steely Dan. (For my birthday he also gave me the 8-track of Earth, Wind and Fire’s “I Am” — one of my all-time favorites)

What I realize now is that even as a child, I had a thing for what we now called Yacht Rock. It wasn’t called that back then. At the time, songs by my favorite groups seemed disconnected by the masses — but within the music industry, there was definitely a pattern developing among these groups and their music. They had a similar beat, tempo, and instruments. They tended to be heavily influenced by jazz, and a lot of the people making the music showed up on many of the projects. (For example, you’ll find that a ton of Yacht Rock was influenced by David Foster. This is just a sample of the yachty songs that had the Foster touch.) People like me who scoured liner notes started to notice that the guys from Toto seemed to be playing on everyone else’s projects, and Michael McDonald was everyone’s favorite background vocalist.

Years later (in 2005 to be exact) a group of friends seized on the commonality among a myriad of songs and focused their attention primarily on a couple of people — Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins, whose music seemed to define the as-yet unnamed genre. They created a web series that had fun with the genre, and the friends — J.D. Ryznar, Hunter Stair, Dave Lyons and “Hollywood” Steve Huey — played a lot of the parts depicting real-life musicians in fact-based but mostly fictitious scenarios. Because most of the music flowed out of what was called a “West Coast” sound, and because Southern California is well-identified with sailing, they coined a term for the series that has since been glued to the genre — Yacht Rock.

Along the way, the four have also recorded an extensive series of podcasts discussing whether songs belonged “on the yacht” or not. (The ones that don’t are “nyacht rock.”) They created the “Yachtski Scale,” which averages their four opinions about songs on a range up to 100. This scale helps us understand why the Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” rates as a 100 and the Eagles’ “Peaceful, Easy Feeling” comes in at a measly 1.25. (For the record, I love the Eagles, but when you place them under the Yachtski microscope, they’re simply not made for the yacht. And I think the Eagles are perfectly fine with that…)

They also together a list of criteria for what makes a song boat-worthy or nyacht. A lot of people have tried to describe them in various terms, but the best list I’ve found was put together on the site, Yacht Rock Miami. Rather than put all 18 points in this article, you can find them here.

It’s a fun genre, and when I’m not in the mood for a specific band or another genre, I’m usually listening to Yacht Rock — and so are millions of other people. Sirius XM has a channel devoted to Yacht Rock. Spotify has its own Yacht Rock channel. Scores of greatest hit Yacht Rock albums are available on streaming services and on Amazon. There are Yacht Rock tribute bands who dress in captain’s outfits and travel the country playing to sold-out crowds. It’s become quite the phenomenon.

But, like all things good, there’s always room for things to get murky. On the one side, you have Yacht Rock purists who insist that Ryzner and company “invented” Yacht Rock and that whatever they say goes. If their podcast says it doesn’t belong on the boat, then the song is out because the “creators” deem it so. And on the other hand you have people who say, “I don’t care what the Yachtski guys say. My favorite song is ‘I Wanna Make It With You,’ and if they say it doesn’t belong on the boat, they’re wrong.” These folks feel that the term “Yacht Rock” should depend solely on what they would listen to on their make-believe boat.

And I say that they’re all wrong. And they’re all right.

First, the Yachtski guys did invent something, but it wasn’t Yacht Rock. They invented a term that defined a sub-genre of music that already existed. Like all great discoverers, they noticed something that no one else had seen yet, and they forged a path in that direction. They created a web series, hundreds of podcasts, some very cool websites and a musical movement that has proven to be very popular and resilient. But they aren’t the creators or inventors of Yacht Rock. No, those creative geniuses are Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Toto, Christopher Cross, Steely Dan and scores of other bands that followed trends in lyrics, instrumentation, arrangement and production.

So, if we’re dealing not with creation and invention, what is it? Put this under the heading of discovery and trend-setting. For example, you could say that an author like Edgar Allan Poe created the detective story and stories of the macabre. But in fact, he was just the first writer to make these stories popular. Thousands of authors have followed in his footsteps and even improved on his storytelling methods. Just because one person starts a trend doesn’t mean that others can’t follow behind and make improvements and refinements on what that person started.

So, in this case, does Yachtski alone define what is and is not Yacht Rock? Absolutely not. In fact, I’d argue that relying solely on the opinions and ratings of four guys talking over music on podcasts is a highly unreliable method of determining what something is or is not. (Not to mention, they can only rate so many songs. They have certified several hundred songs as yacht-worthy, but there are potentially hundreds more that haven’t gotten the Yachtski treatment. If the Yachtski scale is our only guide, then we have to wait until they get around to rating every song to get the official word. We’re left to decide on these for ourselves, so if we’re allowed to make decisions on the unrated songs, then why not on the rated songs as well?) I’d rather have a broader average of dozens of qualified people who were able to add their opinions into the mix. That doesn’t exist yet, but the closest thing you’ll find is a group of more than 10,000 Yacht Rock fans on Facebook.

And therein lies the other side. In this group you’ll find people who will chime in on one song or another and say, “Well, if the Yachtski guys don’t like this song, they’re wrong.” And while I’m not wedded 100 percent to the opinions of Ryznar, Stair, Lyons and Huey, I do respect their opinions because they have heard a lot more of this music than I have. Their yachtornyacht.com website goes as far as listing the specific musicians who played on each song, and while their podcast discussions can become overly critical and even snarky at times, they do usually bring a lot of information to the table.

(For the record, I actually prefer Eddie Ganz’s “The Yacht Rock Show” podcast. He also provides a ton of information about the music, but he then lets you actually listen to the songs without commentary on top of them. His “Atlantic Coast FM” show on RadioKing is also very much worth a listen.)

So, if you want to include Air Supply, Bread, Journey, America or the Eagles on your personal make-believe yacht, feel free to do so. But please don’t argue to the rest of us the virtues of why your personal favorite songs are clearly Yacht Rock and lecture us on why the Yachtski guys are stupid and wrong. You have to remember that Yacht Rock is founded on those 18 principles (or another  similar version of the same list). That’s why a ton of songs by my favorite group, Toto, will have a chance at being on most people’s fictional yachts while Gordon Lightfoot, while being a noteworthy folk singer, will need to be left on the dock. (And don’t tell that because “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is about a boat it has be be Yacht Rock. See point number 10 on Yacht Rock Miami’s list.)

(For the record, someone needs to point all of this out to the folks at Sirius XM. One thing that most Yacht Rock fans will agree on is that SXM’s Yacht Rock Radio is “nyacht rock” overall. At least 30 percent of the songs they run on that station should be thrown into the ocean, especially Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut,” 10cc’s “Dreadlock Holiday” and America’s “Ventura Highway.” At times it seems as though they have a monkey with a dart choosing their playlist.)

The bottom line is that there’s room for a lot of discussion, and even some more innovation in determining what is and what’s not yacht-worthy. (For example, I distilled the 18 points into an Excel formula that generates a zero to 100 rating. That’s how I make sense of things, but I definitely understand if people feel that’s not for them.) But we always need to keep the original vision of what made the genre so special as our guiding compass point. Otherwise, we’ll pollute our waters with all manner of music that, though enjoyable on land, simply doesn’t belong on anyone’s yacht.

Copyright © 2021 Doug DeBolt.