yacht rock series streaming

• Action/Adventure
• Children's/Family
• Documentary/Reality
• Amazon Prime Video

Latest on Yacht Rock

Stream It Or Skip It: 'Sometimes When We Touch' on Paramount+, A Doc That Observes The Rise And Legacy Of The '70s Soft Rock Sound

Trending now.

This story has been shared 4,696 times. 4,696

This story has been shared 4,242 times. 4,242

This story has been shared 3,445 times. 3,445

This story has been shared 696 times. 696

This story has been shared 591 times. 591

This story has been shared 550 times. 550

This story has been shared 533 times. 533

This story has been shared 519 times. 519

Stream It Or Skip It?

Stream it or skip it: 'worst ex ever' on netflix, a docuseries about cases involving abusive and violent exes, stream it or skip it: ‘kinds of kindness’ on vod, yorgos lanthimos' tryptich of weirdness, starring emma stone, stream it or skip it: 'after baywatch: moment in the sun' on hulu, a docuseries that goes behind the scenes of the megahit lifeguard series, stream it or skip it: 'the sommerdahl murders' season 5 on acorn tv, where a danish cop solves crime while managing a complex social life, stream it or skip it: 'untold: sign stealer' on netflix, where the connor stalions sign-stealing saga threatens to derail michigan’s college football championship season, more from decider.

Does 'Yellowstone' Return Tonight? 'Yellowstone's Season 5, Part 2 Premiere Date, Streaming Info, And More

Is The First 'Monday Night Football' Game On Tonight? Where To Stream NFL Games On Monday Nights This Season

Stream It Or Skip It: 'The Accident' On Netflix, A Thriller Where An Accident At A Kids Birthday Party Throws A Group Of People's Lives Into Chaos

Hawk Tuah Girl Tells 'Summer House' Star West Wilson She's Trying To "Step Away" From Her Infamous Nickname

Gary Coleman's Friends "Appalled" By Ex-Wife's 911 Call For His Fatal Fall in 'Gary' Doc: "She Didn't Help Him"

'The Bachelorette' Season 21, Episode 8 Recap: Who Went Home After Fantasy Suites?

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Episode list

S1.E1 ∙ What a Fool Believes

S1.e2 ∙ keep the fire, s1.e3 ∙ i'm alright, s1.e4 ∙ rosanna, s1.e5 ∙ believe in it, s1.e6 ∙ big rapids: gary's tales of significant history, s1.e7 ∙ i keep forgettin', s1.e8 ∙ gino the manager, s1.e9 ∙ runnin' with the devil, s1.e10 ∙ fm, s1.e11 ∙ footloose, s1.e12 ∙ danger zone, contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More from this title

More to explore, recently viewed.

Join or Sign In

Sign in to customize your TV listings

By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy .

• Seasons & Episodes

TV Listings

• Cast & Crew

I Can Go For That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock

• Documentary

Offers a reappraisal of "yacht rock", a critically neglected era of music popularized by a boom in FM radio stations and its smooth sound. The gleaming yacht sound was, in part, always defined by a group of LA-based session players and composers who worked across a range of yacht bands, informing their specific tone and level of musicianship. Some of these artists talk about the yacht phenomenon and being part of the scene back in the day.

Loading. Please wait...

My cable/satellite provider:

There are no TV airings over the next 14 days. Add it to your Watchlist to receive updates and availability notifications.

Cast & Crew See All

Katie puckrik, latest news see all, popular shows see all shows, what happened in oslo, roger waters: the wall, meetinghouse: the heart of washington, new hampshire, who killed my son, north star: minnesota's black pioneers, nuclear family.

• Cain Says Schon Is Backtracking
• Gilmour Backtracks on Floyd
• Band Reunions Roundtable
• Howe Prefers Original Yes Mixes
• First Concerts for Legendary Acts
• Win a Chris Jericho Cruise

Yacht or Not?: Sailing the Seas of Yacht Rock

Louis Armstrong said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” Duke Ellington said, “There are simply two kinds of music: good music and the other kind.” Christopher Cross said, “If you get caught between the moon and New York City, the best that you can do is fall in love.”

What do these pieces of wisdom add up to? Music, like love, doesn’t follow rules. Musicians as diverse as Armstrong, Ellington and Cross don’t want to be boxed in by genre. They want to write, record and perform and not spend time deciding if they play bebop or hard bop, blues or Southern rock, funk or disco.

But as temperatures heat up and people think of sailing away to find serenity, yacht rock playlists start to float in on the breeze. And that means drawing boundaries with enough latitude that artists don’t object to being boxed in and  still foster playlists with a sense of meaning, a sense of continuity and depth. Peaks and valleys must be smartly balanced against the total annihilation of a common aesthetic. (Yes, despite a fascination with sailing and pina coladas, yacht rock can be taken seriously!)

And so, much to Armstrong’s chagrin, we have to ask, “What is yacht rock?” If it seems obvious, take a look at Spotify’s recent “Yacht Rock” playlist . Spotify is a global streaming leader with some 350 million monthly users, an army of music experts and cutting edge artificial intelligence, and yet the company filled its playlist with songs such as Tears for Fears ’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me,” Van Morrison ’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and Bruce Hornsby ’s “The Way It Is.”

If somebody wants to create and enjoy a stack of songs that runs from tunes by the J. Geils Band , to the  Police , to Bad Company , to Talking Heads (yup, the company has all these artists on its playlist and even included Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters”), they should do that with gusto! It sounds like an evening full of classic jams and fun left turns so cheers to the endeavor. But if a major player in the music business wants to do that and call it yacht rock, we need to take a step back and consider what is and isn’t yacht.

We know breezes, islands, keys, capes, cool nights, crazy love and reminiscing help define the yacht aesthetic (see works by Seals & Crofts , Jay Fergeson, Bertie Higgins, Rupert Holmes, Paul Davis, Poco , and Little River Band ). But let’s get beyond the captain’s caps and map the waters of this perfect-for-summer style.

Watch Bertie Higgins' Video for 'Key Largo' 

Yacht Rock Sets Sail With Help From a 2005 Web Series

Before 2005, people generally placed Toto ’s “ Africa ” and Holmes’ “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” in the soft rock genre. Maybe if they were getting fancy, they’d call them AM Gold. But in 2005, the online video series Yacht Rock debuted. It fictionalized the careers of soft rock artists of the late ’70s and early ’80s. The cheeky show capitalized on the building renaissance of artists such as Steely Dan and Michael McDonald , who embraced the silliness of the series.

“When it came on I remember watching it pretty avidly,” McDonald admitted in 2018 . “My kids got a huge kick out of it. We would laugh about the characterizations of the people involved. At this point it’s a genre of its own. You’re either yacht or you're not.”

He might be right that you’re either yacht or you’re not. But calling it a genre doesn’t quite work (more on that in a minute).

Listen to the Doobie Brothers' 'Minute By Minute'

Riding the Waters From the Radical ’60s to the Sincere ’70s

By the late ’60s, rock ‘n’ roll had become “art.” The Beatles started as simple teen heartthrobs covering early rock ‘n’ roll, but graduated to the supreme weirdness of the  White Album . Chuck Berry gave birth to the Rolling Stones who gave birth to Led Zeppelin and the gonzo bombast of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.” And all sorts of acts went wild from the Grateful Dead , to Pink Floyd , to Frank Zappa  and beyond. The sunshine of ’70s AM Gold came as a reaction to these wonderful excesses. Singer-songwriters aimed to take rock and pop back to the simple pleasures of tight, light tunes such as Beach Boys ’ classics, Motown hits and Brill Building-crafted songs.

Hippies looking for revolution and Gen X-ers on the hunt for rage, irony and sharp edges bristled at the genuine lyrics of tenderness and heartbreak neatly packaged in finely-crafted Top 40. Where the stars and fans of '60s and ’90s rock wanted arty and experimental music, anger and angst, yacht took listeners on a voyage powered by pure earnestness: think of the sincere and intense conviction of Dave Mason’s “We Just Disagree,” Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together," and “Love is the Answer” by England Dan & John Ford Coley.

(Which is why placing the Police or Talking Heads on any yacht mix doesn’t work.)

Yacht rock embodies the final charge of unbridled, heartfelt pop.

“I think these songs remain so popular because they are unabashedly pop,” Nicholas Niespodziani, leader of the hugely successful tribute band  Yacht Rock Revue , explains to UCR. “They’re not self conscious. You couldn’t write a song like ‘Africa’ now. What are they even singing about? Who knows? But it’s fun to sing.”

Watch Captain & Tennille's Video for 'Love Will Keep Us Together'

Music That’s Jazzy, But Sure Isn’t Jazz

Yacht rock doesn’t just have an earnestness to its lyrics, the sax solos come with the same level of sincerity.

If the style was the last gasp of unadulterated pop, it was also the dying breath of jazz’s influence on rock. Jazz rock started in the ’60s with Zappa, Chicago , Santana and Blood, Sweat & Tears , but slowly simple drums and growling guitars stomped horn lines and rhythmic shifts into the ground. However, yacht rock features echoes of swingin’ saxophones, big band horns and Miles Davis ’ fusion projects.

Yacht rock is very pop, but legitimate musical talents made those hooks. Chuck Mangione logged time in jazz giant Art Blakey’s band then took what he learned and crushed complex harmonic ideas into the pop nugget “Feels So Good,” which is basically a Latin-bebop-disco-classical suite. (If you dig “Feels So Good,” dig deeper and groove to smooth jazz mini-symphony “Give It All You Got.”)

Nearly every classic from the style features either an epic sax solo or dazzling guitar part. For horn glory, go spin Little River Band’s “Reminiscing,” Gino Vannelli’s “I Just Wanna Stop” or Grover Washington Jr. and Bill Withers ’ “Just the Two of Us." For six-string wizardry as astounding as anything Jimmy Page came up with (and much more economical), try Atlantic Rhythm Section’s “So Into You,” Pablo Cruise’s “Love Will Find a Way” and pretty much every Steely Dan cut.

(Which is why placing Tears for Fears’ “ Everybody Wants to Rule the World ” and Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” on any yacht mix doesn’t work).

Watch the Little River Band's Video for 'Reminiscing' 

A Vibe, Not a Genre or Gender or Demographic of Any Kind

Being a style, a feeling, an aesthetic, a vibe means that yacht rock can pull a song from a wide variety of genres into its orbit. It also means that it’s not just a catalog of hits from bearded white dudes. Yes, Kenny Loggins , McDonald and both Seals and Crofts helped define yacht rock. But quintessential songs from the style came from the women and artists of color, soul singers, folk heroes and Nashville aces.

For every Loggins' tune in a captain’s hat, there’s a Carly Simon track dressed up as your cruise director. Yes, there's Steely Dan's jazz influence, but also  Crosby, Stills & Nash 's folk legacy (“Southern Cross” remains definitively of the style). Yacht rock playlists should also be littered with appropriate R&B gems, such as the Raydio’s “You Can’t Change That” (which features Ray Parker Jr.!), Hall & Oates ’ “Sara Smile” and Kool & the Gang’s “Too Hot.” Likewise, country acts of the era tried to go Top 40 while attempting to retain some twang and managed to make Love Boat music (see Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning,” Eddie Rabbit’s “I Love a Rainy Night,” Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers ’ “Islands in the Stream”).

It’s hard to tell if the Commodores’ “Sail On” is pop or R&B, harder still to know if George Benson’s “Give Me the Night” is pop, R&B or jazz. But they both feel yacht.

(Which is why Santana can do psychedelic Latin music and can do yacht on “Hold On,” and why the Pointer Sisters can do new wave disco with “Neutron Dance” and yacht with “Slow Hand.")

Wishing You a Bon Voyage on the Seas of Yacht

Spotify was right to think about diversity when making its playlist, though the company got the type of diversity wrong. Yacht has some pretty specific sonic parameters, but has no demographic restrictions when it comes to the kind of artists contributing to the style’s catalog. That means when you hit the high seas of yacht, you don’t need to be afraid to fight for your favorites to be included, just please don’t have one of those favorites be “Ghostbusters.”

We began talking about drawing boundaries with enough latitude that artists don’t object to being boxed in. The wide latitude yacht rock affords matters because music comes to define eras and outlines cultural trends (remember that yacht came in reaction to art rock and that says a lot about the swing from the late '60s to the early '80s). Calling Christopher Cross soft rock might feel right, but it doesn't tell us much about where he was coming from and what he was trying to accomplish. Calling Cross yacht rock, now that we know it's not a pejorative, illuminates his aesthetic.

Cross came out of the Texas rock scene that produced blues aces the Vaughan Brothers and guitar shredder Eric Johnson (who plays on a lot of his albums). He loves Joni Mitchell and that shows in his craft. He's jazzy but not jazz (see those horns and guitar on "Ride Like the Wind") with a vibe that's completely yacht -- developed from the scene that took '60s pop, updated it and sheltered it from the trends of punk, metal, new wave and hip hop. The same can be said for Loggins, McDonald, Simon, Lionel Ritchie and so many others.

Spotify needs to tweak its algorithm so it gets this right. Or, better yet, connect with the genre-crossing vibe that makes yacht so unique.

Top 100 Classic Rock Artists

More from ultimate classic rock.

The Source For All Things Pop Culture

Paramount+ To Launch ‘Sometimes When We Touch’ Documentary Exploring The History of “Yacht Rock”

Paramount+ has announced that SOMETIMES WHEN WE TOUCH , a three-part documentary series exploring the history of soft rock music , will premiere exclusively on the service in the U.S. and Canada on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023 and will also stream in the U.K., Latin America and Australia ( Wednesday, Jan. 4 ), Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France ( Tuesday, April 4 ).

SOMETIMES WHEN WE TOUCH is the untold story of soft rock, whose artists dominated pop music worldwide in the ‘70s, only to crash and burn in the ‘80s, eventually experiencing one of the most unlikely comebacks in music history. The series presents all-new interviews with some of soft rock’s biggest legends, like Air Supply (“All Out of Love”), Dan Hill (“Sometimes When We Touch”), Kenny Loggins (“This Is It”), Ray Parker Jr. (“A Woman Needs Love”), Rupert Holmes (“Escape: The Piña Colada Song”) and Toni Tennille (“Love Will Keep Us Together”). Through candid and poignant stories, these stars lead a celebration of the underappreciated music that continues to have a lasting impact on American culture.

The connective stories that propel the series are augmented by exclusive interviews with dozens of classic and contemporary musicians like Daryl “DMC” McDaniels, John Ondrasik, LA Reid, Richard Marx, Robert “Kool” Bell, Sheryl Crow, Stewart Copeland, Susanna Hoffs and Verdine White; rarely seen archival interview and performance footage; host commentary that embraces the impact of soft rock while acknowledging the cringey excesses that sometimes led it astray; and a review of its continuing power over a new generation found everywhere from hip hop samples and radio remakes to superhero soundtracks and TikTok posts.

The series is produced by MTV Entertainment Studios in partnership with Gunpowder & Sky. Produced by Van Toffler and executive produced by David Gale, Floris Bauer, Barry Barclay and Joanna Zwickel for Gunpowder & Sky, co-executive produced by Rick Krim, executive produced and written by Chuck Thompson and executive produced and directed by Lauren Lazin. Bruce Gillmer and Vanessa Whitewolf executive produce for MTV Entertainment Studios, with Jennifer Yandrisevits serving as Senior Director of Production.

Jason Price founded the mighty Icon Vs. Icon more than a decade ago. Along the way, he’s assembled an amazing group of like-minded individuals to spread the word on some of the most unique people and projects on the pop culture landscape.

PICK OF THE WEEK

‘Farscape: The Complete Series (25th Anniversary Edition)’ — Dive Deep Into Otherworldly Adventure With Shout! Factory’s Definitive Box Set!

• 2023 Wrapped
• About Spotify
• Press Center

Life at Spotify

• Safety at Spotify
• Diversity & Inclusion

Stream On 2023

During Stream On, we’ll share new developments to help creators continue to chart pathways to success and build a truly global audience.

Time to Play Fair

When competition is fair, both consumers and companies win. Learn about our efforts to even the playing field for all developers.

Spotify Loud & Clear

Artists deserve clarity about the economics of music streaming. This site sheds light on the global streaming economy and royalty system.

Spotify x FC Barcelona

Music and football come together in a way that’s entirely new in our partnership with FC Barcelona.

For Artists

For podcasters, for advertisers, for developers, for investors, for engineering, for vendors, for songwriters, for help, chat & ideas.

• Search for:
• Get Spotify
• Company Info
• Communities

Spotify Communities

Yacht Rock: How the Smooth Sounds of the ’70s and ’80s Became a Genuine Genre

July 9, 2019

When the weather’s warm, the weekends long, and the cocktails crafted using blue curaçao, there’s no better music than yacht rock —the soft, smooth sounds released between roughly 1976 and 1984 that typically feature vocals and keyboards with guitars barely audible in the background. Yet, this genre of music didn’t even have a name until a few years ago.  

Artists like the Eagles , Fleetwood Mac , and Chicago were once viewed as belonging to an adult-contemporary, soft-rock bridge between ’70s disco and ’80s arena rock. But in 2005, a few friends noticed that several artists’ albums of the era had boats on their covers. They jokingly called these albums “marina rock” and created a 12-episode comedy video series that went viral. Yacht rock was born, and today the video series’ creators even have a podcast, Beyond Yacht Rock .

On Spotify, yacht rock is most popular among those aged 45-54 and 18-24, indicating that listeners who came of age during the music’s heyday and their children love those smooth grooves. While yacht rock is most streamed in the U.S., U.K., and Canada, when measured as a percentage of total streams yacht rock is far and away the most popular in New Zealand. In fact, seven of the top 10 cities that keep yacht rock on repeat are in New Zealand (which also just so happens to be the current holder of the America’s Cup —coincidence?). 

But what are the defining characteristics of yacht rock? Let our yacht-or-knot list below be your celestial guide.

Check out the official Yacht Rock playlist .

Charting the Onstage Evolution of The Rolling Stones

Discover more.

Guns N’ Roses Bassist Duff McKagan Sings a Message of Hope

Legend of French Singer-Songwriter Serge Gainsbourg Looms Large on Spotify

How Well Do You Know the Spotify Songs of Summer? Take Our Nostalgia Quiz

We’re fighting to restore access to 500,000+ books in court this week. Join us!

Internet Archive Audio

• This Just In
• Grateful Dead
• Old Time Radio
• 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
• Audio Books & Poetry
• Computers, Technology and Science
• Music, Arts & Culture
• News & Public Affairs
• Spirituality & Religion
• Radio News Archive

• Flickr Commons
• Occupy Wall Street Flickr
• NASA Images
• Solar System Collection
• Ames Research Center

• All Software
• Old School Emulation
• MS-DOS Games
• Historical Software
• Classic PC Games
• Software Library
• Kodi Archive and Support File
• Vintage Software
• CD-ROM Software
• CD-ROM Software Library
• Software Sites
• Tucows Software Library
• Shareware CD-ROMs
• Software Capsules Compilation
• CD-ROM Images
• ZX Spectrum
• DOOM Level CD

• Smithsonian Libraries
• FEDLINK (US)
• Lincoln Collection
• American Libraries
• Canadian Libraries
• Universal Library
• Project Gutenberg
• Children's Library
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Books by Language
• Additional Collections

• Prelinger Archives
• Democracy Now!
• Occupy Wall Street
• TV NSA Clip Library
• Animation & Cartoons
• Arts & Music
• Computers & Technology
• Cultural & Academic Films
• Ephemeral Films
• Sports Videos
• Videogame Videos
• Youth Media

Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.

Mobile Apps

• Wayback Machine (iOS)
• Wayback Machine (Android)

Browser Extensions

Archive-it subscription.

• Explore the Collections
• Build Collections

Save Page Now

Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Please enter a valid web address

• Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape

Channel 101: Yacht Rock

Video item preview, share or embed this item, flag this item for.

• Graphic Violence
• Explicit Sexual Content
• Hate Speech
• Misinformation/Disinformation
• Marketing/Phishing/Advertising
• Misleading/Inaccurate/Missing Metadata

plus-circle Add Review comment Reviews

2,123 Views

13 Favorites

DOWNLOAD OPTIONS

In collections.

Uploaded by Unknown on January 14, 2019

SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata)

Yacht Rock Revue: 70s and 80s Hits, Live from New York

Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024 at 3:30 p.m. on KPBS TV / Stream now with KPBS Passport + Encores Sunday, Sept. 1 at Noon and Tuesday, Sept. 3 at 1 p.m. on KPBS TV

In a musical voyage like no other, “Yacht Rock Revue” sets sail on the shimmering seas for a nostalgic journey through the hits of the late '70s and early '80s, where soft rock and smooth grooves rule the waves. A talented group featuring exceptional musicianship and tight harmonies, the program pays homage to the golden era of yacht rock, delivering pitch-perfect renditions of iconic classics from artists like Hall & Oates , Steely Dan , Toto , Michael McDonald , and more.

“Yacht Rock Revue” takes audiences back in time with their lush instrumentation, soulful voices, and tight jeans. Their infectious enthusiasm and engaging stage presence create a feel-good atmosphere that encourages everyone to sing along and dance the night away. The music transports viewers to a bygone era of breezy melodies and yacht rock magic.

Yacht Rock Revue is on Facebook / Instagram

Stream Top Podcasts

Popular podcasts.

1. Stuff You Missed in History Class

Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class in this podcast by iHeartRadio.

2. Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.

3. Crime Junkie

If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.

Featured Podcasts

Law & Order: Criminal Justice System

Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its first season, the series tackles the most influential crime organization in American history, the New York Mafia. Discover how the seemingly random murder of an influential mafioso sparked a chain of events that led to the downfall of the city's five major crime families at the height of their power.

The Wirecutter Show

The Wirecutter Show is a podcast offering expert advice on everyday products that will make your life better. Each week, co-hosts Christine Cyr Clisset and Caira Blackwell, alongside producer Rosie Guerin, speak with Wirecutter’s best-in-class journalists and other expert guests for actionable advice, surprising life hacks, and delightful product discoveries. From which stand-mixer will last you a lifetime, to the best way to travel with pets, to figuring out if your smart lock is spying on you, The Wirecutter Show gives you straightforward solutions based on years of rigorous and independent product testing by more than 140 Wirecutter journalists.

Who Killed Jennifer Judd?

In May 1992, nine days after marrying her high-school sweetheart, 20-year-old Jennifer Judd was killed in her apartment in Baxter Springs, Kansas. The killer had used knives from Jennifer's own set, a wedding gift the couple had only just opened. Upon returning home from work, her husband, Justin Judd, finds Jennifer lying on the kitchen floor with the blade of a knife still lodged in her back. Police immediately suspect one of Jennifer and Justin’s friends. A decade later, another man confesses. However, the case is never solved. In this captivating new series from ID, investigator Sarah Cailean attempts to answer the 32-year-old question: Who Killed Jennifer Judd? She’ll speak with Jennifer’s friends and family as she seeks to understand Jennifer’s life and untimely death. Throughout, Sarah also attempts to understand why police dismissed the confession of convicted murderer, Jeremy Jones. Also, go back and listen to Season 1, Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom? On Why Can't We Talk About Amanda's Mom? host Sarah Cailean recounts her three-year investigation into the unsolved murder of Renée Bergeron that seems to leave more questions than answers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

iHeart Podcast Networks .css-1q01m3q{margin:0 0 -2px 0;}

© 2024 iHeartMedia, Inc.

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use