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Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
The Bridge: Yacht Or Nyacht?
00:49:37
Chris Molanphy talks to the coiners of Yacht Rock about how they define the genre they invented.
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You're listening ad free on Amazon Music.
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Hey there Hit Parade listeners. I have a few announcements about the future of the show and it's good news for both Slate plus members and non plus listeners. While the economic challenges of COVID 19 certainly have not abated, Hit Parade has attracted enough new plus members to allow us to take some episodes out from behind Slate's paywall starting in September. My deepest thanks to our plus family, and by the way, you will still receive considerable value for your membership. So here's the deal. Starting next month, full length Hit Parade episodes will debut in the middle of the month, not the end. Our next full length episode drops on Friday, September 18th. If you are a Plus member, you'll hear the whole show or all at once the day it drops. If you are not a plus member, you will receive the first half of the episode mid month with ads, and you'll have to wait a couple of weeks to hear the second half of the show at month's end. Finally, Hit Parade the Bridge episodes, complete with guest interviews, chart trivia and episode previews, will remain plus only. I'm proud of how our Bridge shows have evolved into rich and informative discussions with stellar guest. Again, I can't thank enough the many of you who signed up for Slate plus just to hear Hit Parade, and of course, the thousands of loyal Slate plus members who've maintained their subscriptions. Bringing ads back to my show, which is essential for its future viability, means making it available to a wider audience once again. But we plan to keep giving plus members the bonus content that they expect and a hearty welcome back to our non plus listeners. We hope you'll consider joining Slate plus in the future if you can. But you can also support Hit Parade by spreading the word about our episodes. Thank you all for marching on the One. And now please enjoy our special Yacht Rock episode of Hit Parade. The Bridge.
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C
She Loves Me and need I tell you that everything here is just fine.
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B
Hey everybody, this is Chris Melanphy, host of Hit Parade, Slate's podcast of pop chart history. Welcome to the Bridge. That's Morning by Al garou, a number 21 hit in May of 1983 and a song deemed essential by the inventors of the term yacht rock. In the song, the always smooth, jazzy R and B crooner bids good morning to everything from his radio to his Cheerios to in the second verse. The Golden Gate Bridge, Produced by journeyman Jay Graden and co written with the equally yachty David Foster Mournin, reached the top 40 fairly late in the yacht rock era. It was Algeraud's last top 40 hit until his theme from the TV show Moonlighting four years later. It was a bridge to the post yacht phase of his career and these mini episodes bridge our full length monthly episodes give us a chance to catch up with listeners and enjoy Hit Parade Trivia this month we have an extra special treat. I have three of the Yacht Rock creators here to break it all down for us. JD Risnar, Dave Lyons and Hollywood Steve Huey co created the Yacht Rock web TV series back in 2005 and it not only won the Channel 101 competition through 10 episodes, it defined a genre far outliving their original creation. Their follow up series, the podcast Beyond Yacht Rock, coined other would be genres like try and Raps, Hard Organ, Divorce Corps, New Wop, and my personal favorite, Dystopian Future in which rock and roll has been outlawed. On the podcast, they also created the Yahtzee Scale to scrupulously and scientifically rate whether songs are yacht or nyat. They are always smooth and frequently hilarious. JD Dave and Hollywood Steve, welcome to the Bridge.
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C
Thank you for having us.
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D
Thank you. And it's great to be here.
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E
Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
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B
I am delighted to have you guys. I'm such a fan of the original web series as I am also a fan of the music. I am one of those crazy people who back in 2006 when you guys started touring around to various places with the Yacht Rock series and showing the videos and bars, I went to a bar in Brooklyn, New York and saw you guys and I even answered a trivia question that you guys were doing live from the stage. Somehow the trivia question was about Huey Lewis. I'm not sure why because he's not Yacht Rock.
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D
But he's awesome.
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B
But he's awesome. And I. And I got it right. And whoever was asking the trivia question called me, I think either a total geek or a total nerd, which of course I am. And I think that might have been you, Dave. But I can't be sure that I.
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E
Don'T think I would ever insult somebody's love of Huey Lewis in the news. But I, I wouldn't put it past it.
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C
It also sounds like, like my, my level of sass, just cruel sass. But I don't recall being on stage for that. But I don't recall much. It's very possible. A couple of us were up there and Dave introduced it and I called you a nerd.
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B
Well, it was an Honor in any case. So now you guys all helped create the Yacht Rock series.
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D
Oh, hi. I'm Hollywood Steve. You caught me relaxing in my Music Nook. From 1976 to 1984, the radio airwaves were dominated by really smooth music, also known as yacht rock.
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E
That's right.
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B
Dave, you played a very pivotal role as Coco Goldstein, the fictional mogul who is at the center of the scene. How did those characters develop when you were dreaming up the Channel 101 show?
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E
Well, I think JD you wrote in Hunter. Excuse me, you wrote in Coco because somebody had to die, and you can't kill off a real person.
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C
I don't even know. I don't. I don't know if I was that far ahead, because, spoiler alert, Coco's killed in the second episode.
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E
Coco. No, don't stop.
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B
It's so beautiful.
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D
So smooth becomes the Christ figure of the series.
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C
We needed someone to who was the center of the scene, somebody who could be a little more outrageous. I think the idea of a guy with a name like Coco Goldstein just sort of, like, summed up yacht rock in the music business all in one avatar. And then Dave put the costume together, which was just perfect. And he costumed every tribute band to come out of the web series.
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E
Yeah, the costume was put together with just old crap I had laying around my house. A woman's blouse. And then I made a harpoon.
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B
Your lucky harpoon.
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E
And I've got my lucky harpoon. Feel good about today, boys? Yes. Yeah. Still.
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B
Well, and in a way, you kind of became the fashion template slash icon of yacht rock, because, like, what are all these guys doing? Whether it's yacht rock review or the people who go to these shows in the audience. But they're imitating Coco, basically, Right?
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E
I will say it's not hard to draw a line from yacht rock to a captain's hat, but I'll also say I was the one that went out and bought all the captain sats for the first episode and wore it as my character.
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B
Nice. So one thing that I covered in the episode that I wanted to talk to you guys about and get your theories is why did yacht rock catch on both yacht rock, the TV show, and yot rock, the musical genre concept? Was it the name? Was it the way you guys defined it? What made it so sticky?
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C
First of all, when the show came out, there was almost nothing to pass around the Internet.
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D
Yeah, this was the very, very early days of YouTube, and there just wasn't a lot of narrative content on YouTube at that point.
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C
Yeah. So if you did anything slightly sticky, you could go a little bit viral, and that's what happened to us.
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D
Yeah. And the shows, I think, are well crafted because they've got strong storylines, strong characters, high stakes. You know, it's. It's good, basic formal storytelling.
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B
I think you even had a cliffhanger at the end of the first episode.
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D
Yeah. Which is usually. That's a no no at channel 101. You don't want to leave your story unresolved too much to get voted back.
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C
We. Yeah, so we made it for the Channel 101 contest, and we were trying to get voted back for another episode, so we wanted to give them a taste of what might be next. And it worked well. We got a lot of votes. And I think the term caught on because it defined a kind of music that people had been struggling to define ever since it was being produced.
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D
Yeah.
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C
I go back and read articles from the 70s and there's all sorts of terms that people are trying to throw onto this music, from jazz rock to, like, Revlon rock. Some other stuff that's just nuts and just doesn't work. So I think yacht rock is just so evocative. Yeah. Smooth music, relaxing. 70s when yachts were hot. I get it. And I think that really helped the show and the term spread.
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D
And I also think that it's a better term for the Google age because some of these other terms that we've seen applied to it. It's like west coast, all one word. How do you Google West Coast?
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B
Right.
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D
Yat rock is a lot easier to Google. And, you know, it also kind of matches it with a visual style that may or may not actually fit the music, but, you know, it puts an image in people's minds in a way that, like, west coast does not.
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E
I think it's a catchy name. You have alliteration right. In the two words. Even though that's not what I originally wanted to call it. I voted for Marina Rock and luckily was voted down. Yacht rock's a much better name, but I think it gave a name to something people knew existed but didn't know what to call it. Everybody had their own name for it, whether it was soft rock or my friends and I had one called retail rock, which was songs that you might hear while you were shopping for dress socks for your court date or grandma's funeral. And yacht rock sort of encompassed everything into a more proper classification.
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B
Right. And yet, okay, to argue the negative side, not that this was all that negative, but people really went to town on the yacht side of the equation. Right. They thought, oh, it's got to be music about boats. It's got to be music, you know, related to seafaring. And Jimmy Buffett counts. And, you know, people kind of went all the way down that pier, if you will.
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D
Yeah, they took it very literally.
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C
We didn't leave people with a very great definition. You know, people had to watch. Watch the shows, understand the subtext, understand the relationship amongst the artists in real life. In order to get what yacht rock truly was, it was much easier to put on a captain's hat and listen to Brandy by Looking Glass and go, I'm doing yacht rock. We. We costumed every single yacht rock cover band to come after the show. They looked at the show and said, that's how we're supposed to dress, and it's fun. And I think that helps spread the term, too, is these. These tribute bands going out dressed in captains hats and playing this music.
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D
And I think it's important to say that the wardrobe is cheap. It's. It's accessible to people. You can go to a costume store and buy a captain's hat for, like 10 bucks. You can go throw on a Hawaiian shirt. There's your look. Like it doesn't. It doesn't cost.
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B
You may even have the Hawaiian shirt already.
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D
Yeah, exactly. Like, when we.
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B
There may be no investment.
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D
These webisodes, we were just telling people, like, hey, just pull out whatever's in your closet that looks like the 70s and wear that. So it's very thrift store friendly, which makes it a lot more accessible for people to participate in, I think.
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B
Totally. But I mean, to pivot from what was funny about it and the. The kitchen element. I always talk up the. The episodes and the concept, not just because of how hilarious the show was, but how smart and specific your terms and your concept of what the music was. You know, like, how hard were you guys trying to be musicological at real. Obviously, you were trying to be funny, but were you. You really were trying to pinpoint a genre, right?
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C
Yeah.
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D
And a scene at the same time. Like, specific people all playing each other's records. But.
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C
Right. We get story ideas by looking at liner notes and see who. Who played on what. And then when I was crafting the episodes, I had to be like, okay, this is taking place approximately February 1978. What songs existed, what didn't? What can we get away with pushing? And so each episode was kind of constrained to an era that had happened, and that helped give it a cohesion in a way, a Musical cohesion. Because early yacht rock's a lot different than later yacht rock.
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D
Yeah, earlier yacht rock tends to sound more like Boz skaggs than Michael MacDonald. Like the first couple years before what a Fool Believes comes out.
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C
Yeah. And a lot of later yacht rock is driven by Quincy Jones sound with Rod Temperton. So, yeah, we were trying to be somewhat musicological, but of course, we just. There had to be fun stories as well.
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B
And I guess after you came up with the stories and came up with the concept, you kind of had to world build, Right? You had to sort of say, well, this, you know, this has the Doobie Bounce. But then there's the hold the Line, which is kind of that Toto more rock, yacht rock sound. And you sort of built out the corners of yacht rock. Or why does Sailing by Christopher for Cross count as yacht rock? Right.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Well, that must have been a challenge.
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C
Yeah, well, that was more in our podcast once we started to go deep, like, 10 years after the show came out. But when we were making the show, we weren't that distinctive. We did know that Toto rocked harder than most yacht rock. And so, you know, we do an episode about Toto's rocking too hard for Michael McDonald until he learns that smooth music can rock. Steve, I heard the record. I never knew that smooth music could rock so hard. I'm so sorry. I'm ready for the eight. And then when we got into the podcast and got into the nitty gritty, then we could start to see patterns emerge more clearly and be like, well, this what a Fool Believes riff is. Is ripped off like crazy. After what a Fool Believes was a hit. And the style is also ripped off where they may not be doing the exact same notes like. Like Steel Away does. There's still that feeling, and it's like this bouncy feeling. And so we invented the term Doobie Bounce to sort of explain. Well, this is what we're hearing. It's very similar to what the Doobie Brothers did when Michael McDonald was writing the songs.
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D
But, yeah, I think when we were doing the web series, it was more just, oh, we have a plot. There we go. That's the episode. You know, once there's a plot that's been built, it's like, what else do we need to do with it? We're telling a story that's mostly fictional. Part of. Part of. Part of that was. All we needed to do was build out a value system for that world that's centered around smoothness. I learned this taking the Robert McKee seminar just like an adaptation, like, once you've got your characters and your world built, the cherry on top is building a value system for that world. And once we had that, that was. I feel like that was what we needed to push it over the top in terms of the storytelling structure.
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C
And it all revolved around the value system of the Michael McDonald character, who, for him, like, being Smoot in his family, you're his friend, he admires you, he can work with you, you're in the club. And being. Being Unsmooth is a huge betrayal. What? Kenny snuck into the studio to record a song for Hollywood. Dear God, I hope it's smooth. So when Kenny Loggins starts rocking, it breaks his heart.
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B
Smoothness is the pinnacle of everything.
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C
Exactly. It's very important.
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B
When did you guys get the sense that yacht rock as a concept and as a genre would outlive the show?
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C
Yeah, there were signs. Like, there was an article written in, like, the San Francisco. Whatever the San Francisco Big Free Weekly was. Somebody just wrote a column about it. And then we had a page in Spin magazine that December after we started making the show. And it's like, oh, well, this is. Something's going on here.
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D
Like, oh, we're going a little bit viral. I guess we're the next House of Cosby's.
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C
Yeah. And then the show got canceled by the Channel 101 audience, and we were like, oh, this stinks. And then, like, three days later, we get a call from this bar in Chicago that wanted to screen it. And we were like, oh, well, this is. This is. This just might live on. And then we went there expecting. It was a Monday night. We expected, like, 20 people, you know, had some beers with some people who liked our web show. And then when we got there, there was a line out the door and, like, around the block a little bit. And the place was packed to capacity. People in captains hats reciting lines from the show. It was absolutely thrilling. And our episode that did poorly at channel 101 and got voted out was a huge hit. This Chicago crowd. So it really felt very nice.
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B
Which was. Was that the Steely Dan versus Eagles show?
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D
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it was. You know, Channel 101 audiences have a core of people who come back every month, and then there's always some new people, like, what's this free thing I've heard about? I'll go check it out. And I think. I think it just sort of. Because the main characters weren't featured, it was sort of a side episode. It just didn't Translate well to people who didn't already know what was going on in the show.
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B
Right. But, you know, it also strikes me that what made the show live on was that people had such affection for the music. Right. I mean, it was the kitsch factor and it was how funny the episodes were. But like, you also, again, invented a genre and, you know, the music started to become its own thing. Right. I mean, that must have felt gratifying.
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D
Yeah, I think. I think it gave people a way to openly enjoy this music that, you know, a lot of people had always liked this or they remembered it from, you know, their parents, record collections or they'd grown up with it. They never really got what was supposed to be wrong with it. And, you know, a lot of this, this old school rock critic mindset is like, it's got, you know, rock and roll has to have this rebellious spirit, man. It' have high energy, it's got to be raw. It's got to project a cool image that I can identify with. And, you know, this music wasn't any of that. And so it, a lot of times it just didn't get very good reviews. I mean, you had exceptions here and there. Like Steely Dane was pretty critically acclaimed and everything, but it just wasn't hip or cool to like this music. And making, making a comedy show out of it not only starts to change the perception around what this music is, but it's also, at the same time sort of giving people permission. And people who get into it, you know, quote unquote, ironically, the more they listen to it, the more they genuinely like it because it's very well crafted music. You know, it starts to stick with them and they realize, oh, wait, this is actually good.
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B
One of the things I loved when you guys did the Beyond Yacht Rock Band podcast and as we talked about, really started honing in on the boundaries of yacht rock was when you debated the yachtiness of various songs. And, you know, in the episode that I did, I based the songs that I included on your yachtski scale, which reveals, you know, how yachty something is. And I'm always intrigued by the songs that are right on the precipice there. They don't quite make the boat like Somebody's Baby by Jackson Brown or Make a Movie Move On Me by Olivia Newton John or Hearts by Marty Balin. So do you guys still quibble over what goes on the boat? Like, Steve, you even did like a Purists playlist that had, like, stuff that you thought should go on the boat, right?
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D
Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's. It's up. It's almost 600 songs now. You can find it on Spotify. Yacht rock, a purist history. But it was. It was partly that I wanted to make a giant list that was in chronological order so that I could kind of trace how the music evolved. And also, I just kept finding. And this was especially true when I was listening to more R and B around the time. I just kept finding songs we hadn't covered yet, and I wanted to get them all in one place. But, yeah, I mean, we quibble about this stuff all the time. That's.
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C
I'm still mad at Steve for a low Yahtzki score that kept Private Eyes by Holland Oates off the Boat and your Smiling Face by James Taylor, off the Boat. I'm furious at Steve for that. Furious. It's bouncing like crazy.
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D
I will never think that Private Eyes is a yacht rock song. It's a new wave song. It's not a yacht rock song. Yacht rock and new wave don't cross over for me. Same thing. Same thing with a lot of singer, songwriter stuff. Although I will say right here before God and country, that I got somebody's baby wrong. That is a yacht rock song. And I messed it up because I was probably on that day cranky that anything that had a piano riff in it that sounded vaguely like what a Fool believes, we were just automatically throwing on the boat.
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E
And I will say that as we learned more and honed the definition, we got better at it. For instance, at the very beginning, I wasn't even sure what a yacht rock song was. I just completely. I think I tried to put the Cannonball Run theme on the boat at one point. And it's a great song, which is.
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D
Which is terrific.
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C
So it's funny because fans, because you can go to yachter and yacht.com and see how each of us rated each song and what episode that came on. So fans have made charts out of that. And you can see at the beginning, our scores are all over the place. And as it went on, because we did it for a year or two, it just. The scores, they're here, and then they were all in line with each other when we all started to really understand what the. The sound was.
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B
Which is good, right? Because it means that you were sort of live and in real time defining the. The boundaries and the.
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D
The.
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B
The hallmarks of this genre.
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E
Yeah, right.
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D
Yeah. In a very. In a very specific way that we hadn't managed to do with the web series.
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E
There was an instance where we re Yotsuki to song by accident. And I think the first time we yachtsied it, it got a 55. And the second time we Yahtsuki it months later, completely having forgotten it was one of the thousand songs we've Yahtzki. We gave it, like, 1.5 points off.
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C
Like 3 points off. So we figured that's. The margin of error on the Yachtsky scale is about three points.
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B
That is not how I expected that story to end. I thought Dave was going to reveal we were off by 20 points. No, you were off by only three. That's really impressive.
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E
If we were off by 20 points, I wouldn't have told you the story.
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B
All right. But it's good to know that somebody's baby belonged on the boat. That. That makes me feel better. Yeah, it's got the bounce.
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D
Yeah.
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C
The thing I really love about the Yahsuki scales, it sums up like. Like, from the. From the web show to, like, our podcast and the attitude people have about it when they go to yacht rock events. The sense of, like, a small bit of irony that we. We take it extremely seriously. Like yacht rock review. We don't like what they do because they don't play a lot of actual yacht rock music, but they, like, take playing the song seriously. They learn those songs and play them well. And so the Yatsky Scale is, like, this really serious study of a genre. Like, we have a hundred podcast episodes called Yachtern Yacht that just go deep into defining this. There's nothing like that for anything yet. We call it the Yatsky Scale, and we say it was invented by a guy named Gene Yatsky. It's. It's ridiculous. Yeah, but it works.
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E
It's completely arbitrary. But it's not right.
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B
That's what I love about it, because speaking as a total pop nerd, it satisfies both the. The comedy side of what you all do. The irony, the wit, the snark. And yet you're taking it extremely seriously. For a chart nerd like me, there's nothing better. That's total catnip.
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D
It just makes your heart smile.
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B
What I also loved about the Yatsuki episodes is that you guys rated a lot of R B, which is, again, something I really wanted to bring out in my episode. How important r B&Yat Seoul is to the core of what the genre is.
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C
Yeah. First of all, all the guys, all the white yacht rock guys that you first think of, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Steely Dan, all growing up, listen to black R B, black jazz. Kenny Loggins, like, Said he patterned his singing voice after Aretha Franklin, among others. So it's like Michael McDonald has stories of hearing soul music out of his older sister's friend's eight track cars and his mind's being blown.
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E
Yeah, all the toto guys were interested in at what the time they referred to as black music.
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C
And so, you know, when Michael McDonald, for example, goes into the Doobie Brothers. The Doobie Brothers were kind of an RB band. Tom Johnston, as Ted Templem described him, was an R and B cat. But when Michael McDonald came in, he really brought some heavy duty R B to that band jazz. And you know, people noticed and more people wanted to do that. There was just a sound that was emerging in pop music at the time. And then by the time, by the time about 1980 rolled around 79 80, Quincy Jones had teamed up with Rod Temperton. And you know, Quincy Jones extremely soulful, jazzy sound was mixed with this guy with an extreme pop mentality. And when they started recording music together, it started to, you know, that really kicked off the real yacht soul strain.
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D
Yeah, that, that and like David Foster and Jay Graden writing for R B artists like Earth, Wind and Fire around the same time, like 79, 80 is where, is where those, those worlds start to meet. And all these guys start playing on each other's records. And it's, it's the same guys playing on, you know, these quote unquote white pop records and the R and B stuff by black artists around the same time. It's the same cast of supporting characters.
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C
Turn your love around.
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B
Don'T you turn me down Right. So it's a true, to use an overused term, crossover music, which I think also, you know, you guys were talking earlier about the moment when yacht rock caught on in the 2000s. And I, speaking as a critic, would link it to what I call the poptimist moment. The moment when people began to appreciate that worthy music didn't have to be played by a white guy with a guitar. And you saw that, you know, music played by people of color, music played by gay people, music played by women, disco, obviously all deserve to be, you know, given some critical approbation. I feel like yacht rock is the same thing. And so the fact that it's, it's a music that has R B baked into it, even when white people are playing it. So it makes sense to me that people are appreciating this music now and don't feel like they have to be ashamed of it.
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D
And I'll give props also to the environment that I had working at the Allmusic Guide, which, you know, this. This is, you know, the world's largest online music database and started in the early to mid-90s. And their whole philosophy from the beginning is we're going to cover all music. It doesn't do us any good if people come here looking for information about, you know, traditionally critically reviled genres like soft rock or disco or anything like that. If we just dismiss those genres out of hand, we need to evaluate them according to their own standards. What are they trying to do? How well do they do it? You know, what are the best recordings in this style of music for people who are interested in this style of music? You know, when I was starting out, I feel like that was a great mindset to be sort of indoctrinated into. And I like to think that it helped lay the groundwork for that, that future poptimist movement because, you know, it becomes this huge online reference. I don't know what Wikipedia would do with all its sourcing if AMG ever went offline. It would just decimate the music section.
- [30:42]
C
And coincidentally, for about a year. When I lived in Ann Arbor after college, I worked at the Music Guide as well. But Steve was a critic. I didn't know him at the time, and he may have been done and already moved to Los Angeles by then. But I had a job in data entry, so my job was to, like, look at the liner notes and track listings and just type them all into the database. So that was sort of my introduction of just like obsessing over liner notes. And that's where I started to see, like, the same names all the time. And, you know, you really get a sense of who the big studio guys were at the time. It was fascinating. Very boring, but very fascinating.
- [31:18]
E
Well, when we all met, actually, Steve and I went to college together and can even trace ourselves back to the same parties, but we don't really remember meeting each other until we moved to Los Angeles. It was at JD's house, and most of what we did was sit around and talk about records. We'd pour over records and be like, oh, hey. And everybody brought their own thing to the table that eventually, you know, you know how it is when a bunch of music nerds get together and start talking.
- [31:47]
B
So you brought up Kenny Loggins a minute ago on a scale From Loggins to McDonald, rate how annoyed to delighted the yacht rockers are by the genre that you guys invented for them. And also, I want to know what Daryl Hall's deal is, but let's let's put the scale from Loggins to McDonald. Michael seems delighted.
- [32:08]
C
Actually, the low part of the scale is Boss Skaggs. Boss Skaggs is super annoyed that he's called Yacht Rock because he doesn't like to be pigeonholed, man.
- [32:16]
B
Really?
- [32:17]
D
Yeah. He does like to be grouped in with those other artists like Steely Dan and whatnot, but he doesn't like the turret. Like, I mean, I think a lot of Steely Dan fans, we get this from, too. They don't like to be associated with the kitsch aesthetic.
- [32:31]
B
Yeah.
- [32:31]
D
And aside, like they were doing briefly.
- [32:33]
B
When I posted the show and was on social media, the Steely Dan fans were the ones who had the greatest objection to Steely Dan even being included in this universe.
- [32:43]
D
By false.
- [32:44]
B
They wanted to lift them out.
- [32:46]
C
They aren't really Steely Dan fans because if they were, they would have seen, oh, Michael McDonald, Toto. They all played with Steely Dan. There is a universe that begins. It's rooted in Steely Dan. Ding Dongs.
- [32:58]
D
Yeah. And, like, they want to disavow themselves from Christopher Cross. But that whole Christopher Cross album was produced by Michael Omarti and who played on a bunch of Steely Dan songs. There's a direct line.
- [33:10]
E
Yeah. The reason Michael McDonald is on Christopher, for Crosses, because of Omarty and who knew him from Steely Dan. It's not hard to draw those lines. I've told this story before, but my wife worked on a television show that was filming right next to American Idol, and Kenny Loggins was there and came out afterwards and was talking to people and taking photos. And my wife went up to him and said, hey, my husband played Coco in Yacht Rock. And Kenny kind of stopped smiling and just looked at her and said, oh, not, hey, not cool. Just not, go screw yourself. Just, oh. And that was it. Luckily, she got the photo first, so.
- [33:50]
C
I think that's good evidence that Kenny Loggins is kind of in the middle of the reaction scale. And then.
- [33:55]
B
Okay. But Michael McDonald would probably be the top of the scale. I pulled one interview where he was delighted, but there was more than one where he's pretty delighted. That whole thing.
- [34:04]
D
What did you think?
- [34:05]
C
At first, I thought it was hilarious. When I first saw it, it was. You know, it was almost uncanny how for not knowing any of us.
- [34:14]
D
You mean the video series that actually originated us where it was.
- [34:17]
C
It was pretty. Pretty funny. These poor guys. I feel sorry for them because they can't have an interview now without somebody bringing up our stupid web show.
- [34:25]
E
Yeah. McDonald said something really funny. He said, he thought they were funny, but he also said they really hit on something. Kind of like when you get a letter from a stalker and you don't know how they knew all that.
- [34:38]
C
High praise.
- [34:39]
E
Which I thought was a great compliment. Yeah, high praise.
- [34:43]
D
The Toto guys seem pretty positive about it. I think Lucather thought it was funny and Steve Picaro was flabbergasted that he was a main character in a. In a web episode.
- [34:53]
E
Well, I also think the Toto guys have an incredible sense of humor and they're always screwing around and making each other laugh. So I think they also have a sense of irony.
- [35:02]
B
Right. I mean, just the way they talk about Africa, the fact that they are flabbergasted that this is their biggest hit.
- [35:07]
E
That they hadn't been when they wrote it. I mean, that should be clear in the lyrics, but.
- [35:17]
B
Right.
- [35:18]
C
Hurry, boy, it's waiting there for you.
- [35:22]
B
Are you guys proud, annoyed, exhausted by this thing that you created? I mean, you did it. Yes, all of the above. Right?
- [35:31]
E
Absolutely.
- [35:33]
B
So what's the status of, you know, the future of yacht rock for you guys? I hear you're working on a couple of things, like possibly some follow up podcast to beyond yacht Rock. And I think you have a book project that you're working on.
- [35:45]
E
Yes, we do.
- [35:46]
D
We're going to announce that publicly for the first time to people beyond our immediate social circles.
- [35:53]
C
We signed a book deal with Little Brown uk. Steve Lugather's book agent came up to us at one of our live events. It was like, you guys should do a book. And we were like, yeah. And then we were like, maybe we should. So we did a proposal and he had an editor that wanted to buy it, and so we have. So now we're writing like the ultimate, like, end all, be all book on yacht rock. So we know a ton more than we did just six months ago. We've been deep into research and learning so much, and luckily all the research we're doing is only reinforcing our theory about what yacht rock is like. We have not been wrong. This is a real thing. You can definitely tell a narrative of how the genre came to be and these people's careers and how they shaped the sound and pushed the sound. We're starting to learn who really did push the sound and who didn't. Like Michael McDonald. Kenny Logg is definitely pushing the sound. Baz Skaggs, Christopher Cross, not so much. They have other people to thank for, for becoming, you know, getting that yacht rock sound. So, yeah, we're working on the book and we hope to teach the world a lot, as we've been learning. A lot.
- [37:06]
D
Yeah, I believe. I believe it's tentatively scheduled to come out spring of 2021. I have nothing more specific than that. You know, there's a pandemic. The world is on fire. We don't know exact details yet, but.
- [37:19]
E
And we're also trying to get a new podcast off the ground, but it's still taking shape, and we're figuring out how to. How to do it from our own homes, which. This is a great. What we're doing now is a great tutorial.
- [37:30]
C
Yeah. We're gonna do a new podcast that's devoted entirely to Yacht rock. So we can continue the Yahtzee scale, and we can. We can sort of have some more fun with all this knowledge that we're sucking up into our brains.
- [37:44]
D
But for now, it's kind of taking a back seat to actually writing.
- [37:47]
B
Right. You got to get the book done.
- [37:48]
D
Writing it's hard work.
- [37:49]
E
That's why not a lot of people do it.
- [37:51]
D
It's really hard work.
- [37:52]
B
Yeah, tell me about it. Well, all of this news is making my heart soar. As a fan of Beyond Yacht Rock, as a fan of the music, the thought of the book coming makes me happy. The fact that you're revealing it on my podcast, I find very flattering. And the fact that the Yatsky scale will live on that is amazing news. So, guys, thank you so much for joining us here for the Bridge. I'm excited for everything. In the meantime, what's the best way for folks to get in touch with you? You guys all tweet, right?
- [38:23]
E
Yeah, we're all on Twitter.
- [38:26]
C
D risnar.
- [38:27]
E
I'm avidblions.
- [38:31]
D
I'm HollywoodSteveveh. I had to put my last initial on there because every time I adopt a new platform, people have already taken Hollywood.
- [38:39]
E
Steve shouldn't have had such a catchy name.
- [38:41]
C
You can also follow YachtRock. Luckily, we do have that Twitter account.
- [38:46]
E
Yeah, we did get that.
- [38:47]
B
Well, guys, thanks so much for being on the bridge.
- [38:49]
E
Thank you.
- [38:50]
D
Oh, thank you for having us. And in response to your earlier question, I'm not sure what Daryl Hall's deal is.
- [38:58]
B
Now comes the time in Hit Parade, the Bridge, where we do some trivia. And joining us on the line from Pelham, New York, is Rachel. Rachel, are you there?
- [39:07]
A
Hi. Yes, I am. Thanks for having me.
- [39:09]
B
Sure thing. So I understand that before we got on the mic here, you had some guesses as to what my next topic might be. And since we haven't Done the trivia questions yet? I suppose you could fire some guesses at me if you wanted.
- [39:22]
A
Sure, yeah. I've been waiting and anticipating a grunge episode for a while.
- [39:28]
B
Interesting.
- [39:29]
A
Also a boy band episode. Ever since you did the Swedish pop music, which was very female pop based, I wondered when we'd get the boy band pop side. And then I also wonder if you're gonna do a Cardi B episode.
- [39:47]
B
Well, it's interesting, that last one. I don't have a Cardi B episode planned quite yet, but I have Cardi B on the brain because I wrote about her new number one hit for why Is the Song Number one just this week. So I was kind of immersed in the world of Cardi B. Yeah, I.
- [40:03]
A
Think she's trying to make a last minute bid for your song of the summer.
- [40:08]
B
Very last minute, but man, she really came slamming in there. So her and Megan thee stallion go crazy. In any case, I'll tell you this much. None of those three topics, all good, by the way, are the next topic. So you haven't spoiled yourself on the trivia questions I'm about to ask you, but they're very good candidates and let's just say that at least one or two of those have been in the hopper for potential future episodes. So.
- [40:35]
A
All right, good to know.
- [40:36]
B
Yeah, yeah, stuff's coming down the pike, but for now we're going to do our usual trivia round. First of all, I'd like to say thank you, as I always do, for being a Slate plus subscriber because as you know, we only open our trivia rounds to Slate plus members. And all of you, if you would like to be a trivia contestant, please visit slate.com hitparadesignup that's slate.com hit parade signup. And of course, Rachel, you know how this works. We're going to ask you three questions. The first is a callback to our most recent episode of Hit Parade. And the next two are going to be a preview of our forthcoming episode of Hit Parade. All right, here we go. Question one. In last month's episode, I played a yachty hit by Toto that did better on Billboard's Hot Soul singles chart than it did on the Hot 100. What was it? A, hold the line. B, Georgie Porgy, C99. Or D, Rosanna.
- [41:38]
A
Well, I know Rosanna went to number two, so I doubt it could have done better on R B, so I'm gonna have to guess Georgie Porgy.
- [41:50]
B
That is absolutely correct. The correct answer is B, Georgie Porgy. And as you said, with vocals by rising R B singer Cheryl Lynn, this toto single peak at number 18 on the soul chart and only number 48 on the pop chart. Excellent. Great memory. You're one for one. Here comes the preview trivia. Ready for some preview trivia?
- [42:10]
A
Yeah, I'm excited.
- [42:11]
B
Here we go. Question 2. What 1988 number one hit won record and song of the year at the 1989 Grammy Awards? And then the artist never had a Hot 100 hit again. A Rick Astley, never gonna give you up. B the Escape Club, Wild Wild West. C Will To Power, Baby I Love youe Way Freebird Medley. OR D Bobby McFerrin, don't worry, be Happy.
- [42:42]
A
Ooh, that's tough. And I love when hit wonder 80s music. Wild wild west by the Escape Club is so good that I want to pick it, but I do know that Bobby McFerrin, that song he won. I feel like he did really well with. So I'm gonn. D, Bobby McFerrin, don't worry, be Happy.
- [43:01]
B
And that is correct. The correct answer is Don't Worry, Be Happy. The unique jazz vocalist Bobby McFerrin, who performed unaccompanied, mostly acapella, was a pure one hit wonder on the Hot 100. By the way, all of the other 1988 chart toppers I asked about in that question, all of those artists scored at least one other top 10 hit, and Rick Astley scored four more.
- [43:27]
D
Be happy.
- [43:27]
B
All right, you are running the table. Are you ready for question three?
- [43:31]
A
I'm also ready to learn what else Escape Club did that I can't think of. But yes, I am definitely ready.
- [43:36]
B
All right, here we go. Question three. Speaking of one hit wonders, which of these artists qualifies for that term, having scored only a single smash and never returning to the hot 100? A, Nana 99, LuftBallons, B Vanilla Ice. Ice Ice, Baby. C Men Without Hats, the Safety Dance. Or D Billy Ray Cyrus, Achy Breaky Heart.
- [44:02]
A
Well, I definitely don't think it could be Billy Ray Cyrus because wasn't he on the remix of Old Town Road? And I don't even know anything about country, so I'll put that aside. I think. I don't really know, but I'm gonna take a stab with Men Without Hats, Safety Dance.
- [44:19]
B
I'm sorry, the correct answer was a. N. The German band's 1984 number two hit, 99 Luftballoons, or in English, red Balloons was their only single to crack the Hot 100. By the way, their follow up, Just a Dream Bubbled under the chart at number 102. Ah, so close. You were absolutely right about Billy Ray Cyrus and Old Town Road. That was the obvious answer you could throw out. I understand you have a question for me where you are going to turn the tables on me.
- [44:53]
A
I did. With Cardi B on the Brain and my hope for a Cardi B episode. Anyway, it's a Cardi B question for you. Okay, so here it is. Cardi B just became the first female rapper to have four Billboard number one hits. She's also the only female rapper to win the Grammy for Best Rap Album.
- [45:17]
B
What?
- [45:18]
A
Two rap acts that are fellow winners of the Best Rap Album Grammy have the exact same amount of number one hits as Cardi B in their careers thus far. Is it A, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and Kendrick Lamar, B, Jay Z and Kanye West, C, Lil Wayne and Outkast, or D Ludacris and Puff Daddy?
- [45:49]
B
Wow, that's an amazing question. So I'm basically looking for rap acts with four Hot 100 number ones. Did I hear that right?
- [45:59]
A
Yes. And they've also won the Grammy for Best Rap Album.
- [46:03]
B
I know I can eliminate A because I'm pretty sure Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and Kendrick Lamar have only had like one or two hit number one hits a piece. I guess two apiece, come to think of it, because Kendrick was on the Taylor Swift remix. I'm pretty sure Lil Wayne has been to number one maybe three times because of guest appearances as well as Lollipop, his own hit. The answer's probably gotta be B, Jay Z and Kanye West. So that's my guess.
- [46:36]
A
You are correct. It is B. Jay Z and Kanye West. Jay Z won the Grammy for Best rap album in 1998. He's had four number ones. All with women, actually.
- [46:48]
B
Wow.
- [46:48]
A
99. Mariah Carey collaboration Heartbreak. Him and Beyonce's 2003 track Crazy in Love when he collaborated with Rihanna for umbrella in 2007, and 2009's Empire State of Mind with Alicia, which is only.
- [47:03]
B
One where he's the leader. Interestingly, of those four.
- [47:06]
A
That's right. You know, you're correct. Kanye's also. He's won the Grammy four times and his four chart toppers are Gold Digger, Stronger and his feature goals on slow jams and EC. You are correct. McLemore and Ryan Lewis as well as Kendrick Lamar have two number ones each. You're spot on with Lil Wayne as well with three Outcast, as you probably figure, since we recently. You recently covered Outkast on Hit Parade. I did they have three number ones, Ms. Jackson. And then the back to back hit hey ya. And the way you move. Right, And Puffy and Ludacris each have five number ones. So that's gonna be Cardi B's next hurdle to go over.
- [47:47]
B
Yeah, Rachel, that was an excellent question. You really made me sweat for that one. I was really struggling, but I enjoyed it tremendously. And you got two out of three yourself. So nice job and thank you for being on Hit Parade. The Bridge.
- [48:01]
A
Thank you so much for having me.
- [48:05]
B
So as those last two trivia questions indicated, our next Hit Parade episode coming in September will be about one hit wonders. Now this is a very common term. It's a term used by people who don't even follow the charts. But if you are a chart follower, what does one hit wonder mean? I mean at the data level, at the chart peak level. So when does an artist escape the one hit wonder tag? When they score another hot 100 hit, a top 40 hit? What about if they score a second immediate hit but then never return? Are they still a one hit wonder? And what about rock legends? Like, is Jimi Hendrix a one hit wonder? Are the Grateful Dead one hit wonders? I'm going to propose some some rules to determine who qualifies as a one hit wonder. And if you thought yacht rock was a debatable term, wait till we tackle this one. So look for our one hit wonders episode of Hit Parade coming to your podcatcher in September. This episode of Hit Parade, the Bridge was produced by Asha Soluja. To Sign up for Slate plus to support our show, head over to slate.com hit parade plus and I'm Chris Melanfi. Keep on marching on the one.