The Pop Corporation

Daryl Hall’s transition into grumpy old dude continues apace. After airing his dirty underpants with the fallout of the dissolution of the Hall & Oates partnership – which he could have done quietly and left us to enjoy the tunes – he’s now turned his irritation toward the term ‘Yacht Rock’.

Now, before we crack on, the creators of the Yacht Rock term – thanks to the now cult legendary comedy mockumentary (it’s actually more of a Jukebox Musical, if you ask us, but we’ll play along) – the ‘yacht’ in question is more evocative of high production value, elite studio musicians or musicianship, jazz and R&B influences, electric piano, and tales about fools in love or heartbroken by it.

Of course, a lot of the grumpy old men of ’70s rock aren’t happy to be included in anything they see as dismissive of their various talents and achievements and, honestly, it’s all part of the fun and lore of the thing.

However, what is undeniable is that a lot of the music released that this genre focuses on, was given a huge shot in the arm, and a number of erstwhile forgotten records had a renaissance, thanks to a funny, silly little love letter to them. However, we’re all grown-ups and it is still funny when Donald Fagen of Steely Dan fame gives the whole crew short shrift at the mere mention of the phrase.

Like we said, it’s all part of the lore.

And so, let us enjoy Daryl Hall’s lambasting of the term while being interviewed for a podcast called Broken Record.

Hall said: “This is something I don’t understand. First of all, yacht rock was a fucking joke by two jackoffs in California, and suddenly it became a genre. I don’t even understand it. I never understood it… it’s just R&B, with maybe some jazz in there. It’s mellow R&B, smooth R&B. I don’t see what the yacht part is.”

We refer you back to what Team Yacht say Yacht Rock is, earlier in this piece.

He continued: “People misjudged us because they couldn’t label us. They always came up with all this kind of crap, soft rock and yacht rock, and all this other nonsense. And none of it, none of it really describes anything that I do, really.”

Meanwhile, let us recall the ever lovely John Oates, who said of the whole thing: “I think (web show) Yacht Rock was the beginning of this whole Hall & Oates resurrection. They were the first ones to start to parody us and put us out there again, and a lot of things have happened because of Yacht Rock.”

Regardless of all that, mostly, in the Yacht Or Nyacht canon, Hall & Oates aren’t even very yachty. Checking their entirely-not-serious-but-a-bit-serious-but-don’t-take-it-too-seriously league table, Hall & Oates only have two songs deemed ‘yacht’ (click here to check what’s yacht or nyacht for yourself).

So, in enjoyably grumpy old man terms, JD Ryznar, Hunter, Steve and Dave would agree that, yes, it’s a ‘joke’ and, no, Hall & Oates aren’t really getting lumped in with all that. They will have to confirm themselves whether they’re ‘jackoffs’ or not, but you suspect that they are pretty familiar with beating their jean meat.