Yacht Rock Revue

Here’s the nadir – you hopefully all know that Yacht Rock was never a genre but for a clever set of YouTube mini webisode-something-or-others… which basically dressed soft-rock in boat shoes and an admiral’s hat and made it a stoner’s wet-dream.

Slavish devotion to irony built a fan base for a guilty pleasure renewed. And suddenly it was “okay” to like Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins and Hall & Oates and Steely Dan and playlists emerged that merged those artists with Commodores and selected Fleetwood Mac cuts and one-offs by a variety of One Hit Wonders and new found aficionados marveled over production values or reminisced about a scene that was never actually ever there or an era that occurred before they did.

Those of us that had liked a lot of the music now suddenly “quirky” and/or “interesting” were either chuffed to have people in our camp or baffled, maybe even insulted.

I’ve never cared too much either way, because a light was being shined in the direction of a lot of music I loved already and through that I picked up on some songs I didn’t know – or had forgotten I knew. And I couldn’t give a shit about any genre’s “authenticity” because genre is a marketing term, and it’s shorthand – and like anyone that would want to ever protest the idea of genre I’ve often used it as a signpost. It can be very handy. But it’s also easy to just straight ignore.

All that said…

Yacht Rock is over. And thank Christ (Christopher Cross). And the murderer is Yacht Rock Revue – a covers band that went on booze cruises playing Steely Dan and maybe even England Dan. But got too big for their boots and made this – an album of originals, all but admitting to being Yacht Rock’s Steel Panther but basically writing jokes that pack no punchlines.

This isn’t even po-faced. It’s just day-drunk shit-faced.

These guys can play, they can layer in a purloined hook or two – but this isn’t even 80s Beach Boys Bad. It’s just sad. It’s just chasing the dying end of a fad sad. It’s just the genre-ride’s been had sad. It’s just a bad dad-rock gag sad.

The big problem is that this is just catchy/ish background joke-pop designed for people that don’t really like music – but made by people that obviously love music. That’s what fucks me off most about this quick cash-grab attempt.

Ignore this. Though me writing about it, if you’re reading about it, means you’ll go click a link and have a quick hoon on this out of curiosity. You’ve been warned. Do it if you must. But hopefully we’ve by now built up some sort of trust.

Now, I’m off to listen to Bob James…

And fuck these guys!
You can support Off The Tracks via PressPatron