Summer Means Yacht Rock

They should just call the yacht rock - Anything Michael McDonald had anything to do with. Yah He Be There.

 

Basically 80% of everything that Casey Kasem spun in the year 1980 qualifies. God, what a shit year in American music.

 

Not everyone can get yacht rock.

The world needs ditch diggers, too. Or factory workers to listen to their Eagles and Bad Company all day to get through the shift.

 

Great placement of "Caught Up in You" in Spring Break when Nelson is looking for the girl in the Holiday Inn

 

The Gold Medal of Yacht Rock:

The Silver Medal of Yacht Rock:

The Bronze Medal of Yacht Rock:

 

In the summer of '80, I worked in an amusement park that had the local Top 40 station on loudspeakers 24/7. All the dreck that landed that summer has been drilled into my head permanently, the worst being Benny Nardones' "Into the Night." For the past nearly 40 years, any mention of jailbait, teen prostitution, student-teacher sex, etc., brings out a Pavlovian "She's just 16 years old/leave her alone/they saaaayyyyyy..."

 

Jerry Lee Lewis says they didn’t have permission to sing about him (so did Elvis and Polanski)

 

Christopher Cross' Sailing all the way down in 10th? He's been robbed.

 

Maybe it isn't michael Mcdonald - but dudes with beards.

 

Robbie Dupree did nothing but copy Michael McDonald. Cheap, bad copy at that.

At least McDonald is a serious musician with chops. And kudos to Terrier ... that track is creepy.

 

Each weekend, I love listening to the Top 40 countdowns on the XM 80s on 8 channel (along with American Top 40 on the 70s channel), and for me, the gold standard are the 1980-82 shows. Talk about a smorgasbord. Air Supply, Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald, of course, but also Rupert Holmes ("Him," "Answering Machine"), Kenny Rogers, Juice Newton ... that to me is the true Yacht Rock. My father loved that adult contemporary stuff when I was a kid, so hearing some of these songs flash me back to being in our '74 Ford Maverick or '79 Ford Pinto.

I have to say that the XM Yacht Rock channel is pretty terrible. I feel like it's a repeat of the same 30 songs (and I don't believe that Steely Dan is considered Yacht Rock), although since it moved to channel 70, they've added a few that I haven't heard before.