‘Yacht Rock’ sails into vintage pop glory
By the late ’60s, pop music had become complicated. The Beatles had gone from “Love Me Do” to the freaky, wild second side of “Abbey Road.” Blues-based rock went from Chuck Berry to Led Zeppelin. And everywhere artists got weird (the Grateful Dead), sardonic (Dylan) or weird and sardonic (Frank Zappa).
Then came the sunshine of ’70s AM Gold. What we now call yacht rock came out of a singer-songwriter explosion looking to return pop to its roots. That meant looking back to the gentle, almost-adolescent love songs of the Beach Boys, the Righteous Brothers and everything that came out of the Brill Building (and plenty from Tin Pan Alley too). The hooks were sharp, the instrumentation breezy, the lyrics earnest.
Celebrating the genre, Legacy Recordings recently released “Now That’s What I Call Yacht Rock.” The compilation serves as a perfect introduction to soft rock heaven and manages to be woefully inadequate (it wasn’t all bearded bros in captains’ caps, where are cuts from Nicolette Larson, the Pointer Sisters, the Commodores?).
The 18 tracks hit on obvious (and compulsory) picks such as Toto’s “Africa” and Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Pina Colada Song),” both of which exemplify the earnestness of the style — nobody but Toto and Holmes ever put so much heartfelt sincerity into word salad about the geography of Tanzania or aspirations to make love at midnight in the dunes on the Cape.
But any magic these songs once had has been crushed by overplay, the music has evaporated in the wake of memes, punchlines, covers and cheeky soundtrack placements. Deeper into the compilation, the true delights of the genre glow like Peter Frampton’s blond mane on “Frampton Comes Alive!”
Often derided for syrupy lyrics in our age of constant irony, these songs offer tenderness and heartbreak framed in finely crafted Top 40. Dave Mason’s wrung-out weariness stands out against the warmest of vocal harmonies on “We Just Disagree.” Poco’s “Crazy Love” has the lilt of “Africa” but the lyrics and guitar picking of a James Taylor gem.
Unlike the push in the wider world of rock to punch up the bombast, the artists on “Now Yacht Rock” were the last generation to draw heavily from jazz (from George Gerwshin to fusion). Legit jazz talents added to the genre’s catalog — listen to all ten minutes of Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good,” with its mournful flugelhorn line and bebop-todisco groove.
These artists still dug swinging sax solos (see Little River Band’s “Cool Change,” Climax Blues Band’s “Couldn’t Get It Right”) and they adored guitar solos but wanted economical, restrained knots of notes not Jimmy Page or Hendrix histrionics (Ace’s “How Long,” Pablo Cruise’s “Love Will Find a Way”).
Basically, yacht rock represents the last gasp of unselfconscious pop. These artists really and truly wanted to woo you with some Fender Rhodes keys or populist poetry or a melody halfway between the Beach Boys and Carole King. And that impulse to go dancing in the dark, walking through the park and reminiscing provided a much-needed contrast to excesses and extra-ridiculousness of Kiss, Rush and AC/DC.
Mock me until your throat is raw, like those lonely sailors in that harbor town, I will forever be singing, “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl).”