Daryl Hall Blasts “Yacht Rock”: A “Joke” He Never Understood
Daryl Hall, of the iconic duo Hall & Oates, is making waves with his candid opinion on the genre known as "yacht rock." Despite his music often being associated with the smooth, jazzy sound, Hall recently went on record to express his disdain for the term, calling it a "fucking joke" that he never understood.
During an appearance on the Broken Record podcast, Hall didn't hold back: "This is something I don't understand. First of all, yacht rock was a fucking joke by two jerk-offs in California and suddenly it became a genre. I don't even understand it. I never understood it." He continued, "It's just R&B, with maybe some jazz in there. It's mellow R&B. It's smooth R&B. I don't see what the yacht part is."
The term "yacht rock" emerged from a web series in 2005, poking fun at the smooth, high-production-value music often favored by the Californian boating community. While some artists have embraced the label, Hall finds it a miscategorization of his and John Oates' musical contributions.
He argued that the industry has always struggled to define their sound: "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 really describes anything that I do really."
Interestingly, even the creators of the "Yacht Rock" web series seem to agree, with their website, Yacht or Nyacht?, classifying only a couple of Hall & Oates songs, like "Time's Up (Alone Tonight)" and "Kiss On My List," as true yacht rock. The rest of their hits fall outside the category.
While Hall is expressing his frustration with the Label, the impact of "Yacht Rock" has not gone unnoticed. John Oates had this to say in 2007: “I think 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.”
Garret Price, director shared Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, which explored the pseudo-genre through a more serious lens. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the director acknowledged the unfavorable attitude some artists associated with yacht rock, like Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, have toward it — but he still sees the richer value in it.
Hall's comments have sparked a new wave of debate around the definition and validity of "yacht rock." Is it a legitimate genre or just a lighthearted label slapped on a specific sound? Perhaps it is something in between.
What do you think? Does Daryl Hall have a point? Share your thoughts on "yacht rock" and its place in music history in the comments below!