It was nothing more than a mild neck spasm, really, a five-minute online mild thunderstorm (I still got wet), and at least a diversion from seeing Zohran Mamdani’s mug on Twitter every 20 minutes.
But even the mention of Seals & Croft’s purposely inoffensive “Summer Breeze” from 1972 can get me going on a laid-back rant. The song was almost immediately dubbed “soft rock,” a contradiction, since rock ‘n’ roll, at its best, was never flaccid. A lot of “country rock” made it to the “easy listening” radio stations, and if he were fully cogent a year before his death in 1973, Gram Parsons, arguably the most influential singer to introduce old country standards from George Jones, Hank Williams, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and the Louvin Brothers, might’ve groused that a lot of groups were going to make the money he never did.
Parsons’ one record with The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, marked a shift in the aftermath of “flower power” psychedelia (some really good, most not). Then The Flying Burrito Brothers’ first record The Gilded Palace of Sin (a commercial bust) and his stunning duets with Emmylou Harris, paved the way for the Eagles, Jackson Browne, America, Poco (one good song) and the combo of Crosby, Stills and Nash, which formed, broke up—Neil Young was never a committed member—and re-formed several times when the members needed money. (Bob Dylan’s first “comeback” record John Wesley Harding, quietly released on December 27th, 1967, was a touchstone in the move away from “love is all you need” pop/rock.)
The impetus for this mild neck spasm was a Wall Street Journal article by Mary Julia Koch, a Gen Z writer who tentatively throws a bucket of sea water on her peers, while expressing her “super” enthusiasm for “yacht rock.” She complains that “customized” play lists from Spotify and Apple causes people to escape “into our own musical siloes… we risk losing a shared musical soundtrack.” This Koch line grabbed me, mostly as a reminder that I have, as Bill Clinton said in the 1990s, “more yesterdays than tomorrows.” Clinton’s 80 now, looking pretty fit, and I bet he’s having a ball, making money for doing nothing and “chicks for free,” and not feeling the need to demonstrate his personal cool (he was never cool), unlike Barack Obama, who last week released his list of favorite summer songs. Clinton, and good for him, has had a lot of “tomorrows.”
Koch, in her mid-20s, foolishly wrote: “If I want a good sing-a-long, I put on an anthem from no later than 2016, a year hailed as the last before the internet totally took over.”
The internet “totally took over” in 2016? A lot of my friends and acquaintances in the media business, laid-off or accepting buy-outs in the first year of the century, sped up by the 2008-2010 recession, would disagree. Around that time, so many journalists took refuge in public relations jobs, and here in Baltimore, a fortunate dozen or so (mostly talented) got jobs at Johns Hopkins Magazine. The bimonthly used to be sent to all alumni, but I haven’t received an issue in years.
Koch: “Better yet, I go to the oldies. Turn on SiriusXM channel 15, and there they still are: Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, Steely Dan, crooning to smooth grooves like the ‘70s and ‘80s never ended. Rather than compete with the ever-changing trends of the TikTok era, Yacht Rock plays a smaller catalog of fan favorites… [T]he station is enjoying a cultural revival, fueled by baby boomer nostalgia and younger listeners who are connecting to our parents’ genre—and each other.”
I can’t fathom why this “soft rock” or “easy listening” music is popular; and lumping in the cerebral and blistering Steely Dan (“Kid Charlemagne,” “Any Major Dude,” “Don’t Take Me Alive,” “Deacon Blues,” and on and on) with performers like America, Kenny Loggins, the Doobie Brothers and Dan Fogelberg is not only insulting but incorrect. The weird term “Yacht Rock” wasn’t coined until 2005, and it passed me by. I do remember, however, at a five-day vacation at Canouan in early-2018—a celebration of a relative’s 75th birthday, with about 100 guests—that once dinner was completed, there was spirited dancing to a tape of the “old” songs, which included some “Yacht Rock” duds (and Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, the Everly Brothers, the Stones and Beatles and never-out-of-style 1960s soul). My nephew Quinn, a Millennial musician, remarked to me, while we were standing on the periphery of the revelry, “Want to head back to our rooms, I don’t think I can stomach any more of this detour to Margaritaville.”
Quinn’s was a good-natured jibe, for it was fun seeing everyone having a swell traipse on the dance-floor, but I was happy to call it a night.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023