Yacht Rock (Chaka Khan, Steely Dan, Christopher Cross)

Welcome to the album nerds podcast with your hosts, Andy, Don, and Dude. Ahoy. It is indeed health nerds podcast time. I'm dude. I got Andy and Don with me. Andy, how you doing my friend? You ready to set sail? Dude. Yeah. Got the anchor stowed and sails are at full mast. I don't know all the jargon here. The sails are full mast. Oh boy. Yeah, I'm excited. Going to find out if yacht rock is not rock or rock. A three hour tour. A three hour tour. That's Gilligan's Island reference everyone.

So welcome to the show where the album nerds, we love talking about the albums and album format and got a great show for you today. We're each picking an album. We're going to talk about it. Going to answer a question. And then at the end of the show, we're sailing into some special waters and It's like international waters. At the end of the show. Yeah. At the end of the show, we'll fill you in on what we're doing on the next episode. But this week it's time to rock. Yacht rock.

That's what I'm talking about. The term yacht rock was coined in 2005 by the makers of an online video series called yacht rock refers to a broad music style and aesthetic commonly associated with soft rock of the 1970s and 1980s. The name refers to a stereotypical yuppie yacht owner enjoying smooth music while sailing. Many yacht rockers included nautical references in their lyrics, videos, and album artwork.

The creators of the yacht rock web series identify the following elements of the genre. High production value, use of elite Los Angeles based studio musicians and producers associated with the genre, jazz and R and B influences, use of electric piano, complex and rye lyrics about heartbroken foolish men, particularly involving the word fool and an upbeat rhythm called the doobie bounce. Doobie bounce. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So today each of us will present an album from an artist that has been associated with the term yacht rock. This was a tough one because it's not really a genre and it can kind of be anything as long as one song fits those criteria or the majority of those criteria. I was a fool to think that this would be easy. So yeah, I mean, there were some obvious things. I mean, I went for 70s singer songwriter type stuff. I mean, Michael McDonald, the Doobie Brothers, which he's a member of.

Steven Bishop, Careless, I was really close on. That's a good record from that time. So I listened to the album by Rupert Holmes, which was a bit of a chore besides the single Escape, which was a very famous, very yacht rocky song from that period or the Pina Colada song. Oh, yeah. It's a super essential, yacht rocky beachy tune. So I did enjoy listening to that song.

The rest of the album had some clever little stories like that too, but none of them were as magical as the Pina Colada song, Getting Caught in the Rain. What about you guys? How'd you do? Oh, well, oh man, this was a bit of a struggle for me, but I did find a couple of things I'll mention. They're interesting jazz record from bassist George Duke called Brazilian Love Affair. Came out in the late 70s. It's kind of a concept record about a trippy took to Brazil.

Pretty interesting jazz kind of funk record. Quincy Jones put out a record called The Dude in 1981. Back to that one, huh? Couldn't do that one for obvious reasons. Yeah, copyright, I'd have to sue. We just talked about Michael Jackson last episode, so I felt a little same-sy. We got to mention any touch on Michael McDonald, but he is kind of one of the giants in this space. His 1982 record, if that's what it takes, is a pretty quintessential yacht rock material. He's the captain of yacht rock.

Yeah, seems to be. I originally, the first thing I thought of was Jimmy Buffett, just because a lot of his songs have nautical themes. But then when I started reading about the yacht rock stuff, some people were like, nope, Jimmy Buffett is not yacht rock. He's kind of his own thing. Yeah. And then as I was looking at lists, I saw names like Duran Duran and stuff. I'm like, what is this? This doesn't make any sense. So I got frustrated.

But then I saw a name of a group that I've kind of avoided for a long time. And I thought it was, you know, this was finally an opportunity to get into their stuff. So I made my pick actually pretty quickly. Yeah, would you quickly mention that website you came across, dude? Yacht or not? So yeah, check that out. I believe it was a podcast, but the members of it do a rating system of different songs. And it determines what songs are yacht rock and which ones are not.

And that was a good compass for me to navigate these waters. So why don't we get to it? You choo choo choose me.

I'm like Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan. Let me rock you. Let me rock you. All right, we'll get things started off here with a bit of a dance party on the boat here. Chaka Khan. Chaka Khan. Also? Yeah, I'm just going to hit that throughout. Talking about Chaka Khan, if you haven't guessed. Chaka Khan. Yes, Chaka Khan. And our 1984 record, I Feel For You. Let's play the most yacht rock track on the record. This is a little bit of 3 to 5. Man, I don't know how you do it, Andy.

It's a stretch, but you followed the rules. That song was rated very highly on the yacht rock scale. Pretty popular song for her was the third single from the record covered by Pippo Bryson in the 90s and then sampled again by Kanye West in the 2000s. I would say a pretty influential song for Chaka Khan. Chaka Khan. Chaka Khan. So I Feel For You is the fifth studio album from the R&B singer from Chicago, Illinois. A bunch of different co-writers on the record.

The record was produced by Araf Mardin who produced a whole lot of popular records in the 70s and 80s for artists like David Bowie, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, among dozens of others. Yeah, the record garnered a bunch of hits for Chaka Khan. We're going to play a couple of them in a moment. But the three words that I would use to describe this record are dancing on the decks. I'd say at its heart, it's primarily a dance record, though there are elements of pop and soft rock in here.

I think what I found most interesting about it is it's kind of adventurous in some of its production choices. There's some stuff you wouldn't expect to hear in an early to mid 80s dance record. And we'll get into some of those details in a moment. But why don't we play another clip? This is a little bit of My Love Is Alive. My love is alive. My soul's like a wheel that's turning. My love is alive. So that song is actually written by Gary Wright.

His version called Love Is Alive appeared on his 1975 album, Dreamweaver. Oh, no way. Yeah, yeah. Uh, you son of a gun. I've got that stuck in my head now. Dreamweaver. That's kind of yacht rocky. Totally. Yeah, so this one is a, you know, very electronic dance treatment. That's one of those songs that has like one of those breaky stutters, right? Where it's like, I don't know, I can't, yeah. Breakbeat. I guess how I call that. Yeah. Is that a breakbeat? I don't know.

Like was that around much in the early 80s? This is when it hit really, right? I heard that kind of sound in like break dancing. And that was my only at the time entree into the world of hip hop or rap was breakdancing compilation tapes. It seemed like it. Maybe it was earlier in hip hop. I don't know. And those kinds of sounds were there, but they weren't in pop records, which is part of what made me think this was so cool at the time.

I kind of thought a little bit about how Whitney Houston-y she sounds at times. And also how Tina Turner-y, like, you know, private dancer came out the same year. And there's some parallels, but I feel like Chaka took more chances in terms of like the album may be a little uneven in its sounds, but that's because she was trying a bunch of new stuff. That's funny. Those are two albums. I kept comparing it to the Whitney and the Tina Turner.

Yeah, Whitney came around to 85, right, with their first album. This probably was the same year as the Herbie Hancock record, right? The Rocket. The Rocket, and that had kind of that breaky beat thing. Anyway, yeah, so the three words I chose to describe the album was electro jack swing. So this actually reminded me of the new jack swing records that we listened to. But with just a more electronic approach. It ended up reminding me of stuff like New Order was doing at the time.

I'm also reminded of like Pet Shop Boys and Erasure and stuff like that. So yeah, you know, I found some common areas here. Overall, I think it's a good record. I do think maybe because musically the album is kind of ambitious, maybe it takes away or distracts from her voice a little bit or her personality. Yeah, I think that's fair criticism.

I feel like, at least from my listening on headphones, like the music is mixed evenly with her voice and at times it almost does overwhelm it because there's so much going on like sonically. And her voice is just, she has a great voice. It's very powerful. It's very fairly emotive. Well, let's make it clear too, though, that there's a moment she's on the yacht through the fire, but she she docks and gets off and hits the streets for the majority of the record.

She's in the club, I think a lot of the time. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Well, let's hear one of those more club ready tracks, I guess you could say. Chaka Khan. It's one of the more popular songs on the record. It's a bit of a feel for you. Now, of course, that song is most recognizable with the Chaka Khan rap that starts off the song. Yeah. A Melly Mel from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, which is what drew me to this when I was a youth.

This is probably the first pop song I heard with a rap interlude or maybe one of the first times I ever heard rap music really, except again for my breakdancing cassettes. And I, God, I loved this album. My aunt had it and I made a dub copy of it in my grandmother's bathroom because the acoustics were the best. I took my aunt's boombox and played it and then had my tape recorder microphone up against the speaker. But I used to enjoy that song quite a bit.

I picture you popping and locking to that. I had to stay still during the recording process, but afterwards, absolutely. The three words I used to describe the album were make me break because I would break the breakdance to that. And then I ended up making cuts where it was just the rap part over and over again. Oh, really? But on what we just listened to, I wanted to make sure I get Chaka's voice in there. So this song was written by Prince, recorded on his self-titled 1979 album.

I hear Prince's influence all over this album, not just at the time. I think at the time, I just thought that music was changing. I underestimated his influence. I think New Jack Swing and all the stuff that came after wouldn't have existed without Prince. Hearing these Prince influenced albums and then throughout the 80s, all these songs written by him that were done by different artists. In the 80s, there was this whole conversation about Prince's influence.

In the 80s, there was this whole conversation about Michael Jackson or Prince. There's no contest. It's Prince. Prince was the king of that era. He's the king of influencing R&B and soul music, in my opinion. What do you guys think about that take? I think that's actually a really good point because I remember, I don't remember what year we did for a theme. Was it 82 or 81 or something? I remember listening to the Chaka Khan album from that year. And it just had a very different sound.

I mean, it was still very much of that 70s disco vibe. And I think you're right. I think it's the Prince influence that took us into the 80s, into that New Jack Swing era. Let's just take a little listen to Prince's version of that song. ["Better Than I Got For Your Baby"] A little more late 70s funk on that.

But so I really appreciate what Chaka and her production team were able to do with that song and get Melly Mel on there and really, like we talked about a few weeks ago, elevating, taking that original version of a song and elevating it, making it something new and great. So yeah, really appreciated listening to this album as a whole. Wasn't as awesome to me as it was when I was a kid. I think because of sort of the unevenness.

But I do just remember popping and locking in the spare bedroom at my grandma's house to this song, showing off to my cousins all my moves. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean, just to kind of back up that point, I think the record is a little bit uneven, especially as you get towards the end of it. There's a couple maybe misses there, but the handful of hits I think are pretty great. And it's definitely a product of the 80s. It sounds very 80s.

But I think there's enough interesting things going on and you have the great voice of Chaka Khan who I think is an underappreciated talent. And she just has a good personality. I like listening to her voice. I think that makes me happy to hear her sing as opposed to some artists just seem to have like a sadness to her voice and she's very happy. So maybe it's from reading Rainbow as a kid. She's just been subconsciously implanted in my head. Oh yeah. I didn't know that was her. I didn't either.

But now that I do, I can't stop hearing her voice and like everything. All right. So once again, the record is I Feel For You, Chaka Khan, 1984. If you're out on the boat or going to dance clubs, it's a good choice. I'm good enough.

I'm smart enough and doggone it. People like me. If you're enjoying the show and we hope you are, do us a solid and leave a review on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Maybe we made you laugh or you discovered an album you enjoy. Leaving a review keeps the show going and helps other music fans find us. If I ever listen to Steely Dan, I want you to slice my head off with an Al Jarreau LP. Okay. So my pick from the world of yacht rock is Steely Dan and their 1977 album Asia.

Here's the title track, Asia. That's how it's pronounced. Asia. Asia. Asia. I thought it was aha. I guess they say Asia right in the. So that song supposedly is kind of like an interior monologue of a guy contrasting the shortcomings of his like regimented, passionless life with the space occupied by, I guess Asia is a Korean woman or wife or something who he visits to get relief from like his existence. It actually has backing vocals from Timothy B Schmidt.

He joined the Eagles for the long run album. He's the one that sings. I can tell you why that's on. Okay. Yes. He was in that. That vocal is kind of yacht rocky. Yes. Yeah. That song is definitely, I would say that's high on the yacht or not scale. Anyway, so it's the sixth studio album by the jazz rock band founded in New York in 1971 by Walter Becker and Donald Fagan. So initially the band was a sextet. I bet they were.

That just means there were six of them, but over time it just became just Walter Becker and Donald Fagan and just the sea of like, you know, the best jazz and pop musicians they could find kind of like the Beatles. They stopped touring after a couple of albums and really just focused on studio work. The three words I chose to describe the album are balancing soul and perfectionism. All right. So there is kind of like a contrast here. So these guys are just these meticulous studio nerds.

Yeah, they're nerds, right? They look kind of nerdy too, but so they're nerds. They've got the sound in their head and they're bringing in these great musicians to try to find it and they know when they don't have it and they move on. So, I mean, they're telling them like the, you know, the best guitarist out there, like, no, this isn't going to work. But yeah, so they're really striving for this perfectionism, but somehow, you know, there's still soul in it.

You know, it's not so overproduced that it loses, you know, that jazz and bluesy vibe. You know, it still, you know, just very much has a soul and life to it. But yeah, so well, let's keep going. This is a song called Peg. Yeah, this whole album has these moments where like I just picture privileged dudes doing the overbite. Like, you know, sort of, you know. That's what I was doing. Strutty head thing. Yeah. Yeah. So Peg, the reason I picked it was because it's highly praised.

It's often called the ultimate Steely Dan song, but mostly because De La Soul on Three Feet High and Rising sampled this song on the track I Know. That's why it sounded so familiar. Oh my gosh. Yeah, kind of made it interesting to listen to the actual song and kind of synthesize that in the world of De La Soul. But Don, you're talking about the musicians.

The song's guitar solo was attempted by seven different studio session guitarists, including Robin Ford and Larry Carlton before Jay Graydon's version became the one that they kept. So that's why I wanted the guitar solo in the clip that we played. In 2020, Donald Fagan said there's no hidden meaning. They just wanted a dotted half note for that spot and used the name Peg because it fit. Because that's what they wanted, the perfect sound.

Yeah. So within the sound, the reason it's Peg, the name Peg is just because it fit where they wanted it, not because it's a person or anything special. Could have been Don. Yeah, it should have been Don. Seriously. The song basically takes place at a CD photo shoot in LA from the perspective of a jilted boyfriend. But their lyrics are very repetitive and the music carries it and where you don't even notice.

Like only reading through it do you realize that the lyrics kind of repeat themselves a bunch. The three words I used to describe the album are the whole shipyard. It's more than yacht rock. It's got everything. And it's jazz and rock and that meticulous precision. So it's really good stuff. It's super interesting. I'll keep listening to them because I think there's a lot more to learn.

I've never really, I mean I've heard their songs but I've never given them much time because of that reputation of being kind of nerdy jazz rock. But I really did enjoy the record and I will continue to try to expand my listening horizons with their discography and see what else they got. Okay, well let's hear a little more. This is the opening cut called Black Cow. Andy, please. What the hell does that mean? I have no idea, man. I was thinking of my mind. The Black Cow is a drink, yeah.

It's like a... Is it like a coffee drink or something? Yeah, it's like one of those things you would... They're from New York. So it's one of those things you would have gotten at one of those like old fashioned soda fountain places. You know, kind of like... Like an egg cream? Yeah, kind of like an egg cream. It's like soda, like Coke or root beer with ice cream and whatever. Okay. Well, I'm conflicted on this record here. Let me start with my three words. I chose subtle, spacious, and subdued.

Yeah, I definitely agree with the intricateness of all these...the composition here feels very tight. Some songs like Black Cow I found pretty interesting. They go to some pretty cool places from like a jazz perspective, I guess. Other songs, I'm gonna get more into that pop adult contemporary space like Peg and some of the other records, tracks later on the record. I have a harder time with where it gets a little bit...

It's so subdued and it doesn't really feel like the songs are really given much space to grow or flourish. Kind of like you were saying, Don, how they feel so meticulously put together. They almost lose a little bit of their soul from my perspective. Like they don't feel quite as alive as the other two records we're talking about today. But it is interesting to listen to from just like a technical perspective. And I think the recording is awesome. Like it sounds so good.

You really can hear every little instrument and it sounds huge too. I put it on speakers and actually it sounded like almost like an orchestra I was listening to. It's really a big sound they captured here, which is awesome. And it has like that cool 70s tone to the music too, which I appreciated. There's like moments that are kind of like funky almost. It's like some cool bass that I appreciated. But a lot of it is pretty subdued is the word I would come back.

I almost wish the vocals were less at times. They feel superfluous on some songs. Like it's more interesting what's going on musically than what they're like. Like the dude said, like they just repeat a lot of words over and over again. So I don't know. I did enjoy it more than most of these Yacht Rock records. But I don't know if I love it. Interesting. Well, I understand what you're saying. I think, I mean, other than the Michael McDonald vocals.

Oh, yeah. I wanted to mention that too because Michael McDonald is on this record. My background vocals. He's everywhere in this. He can't get his fingers out. But yeah, the moments that I love most on this record are just the instrumental parts. You know, like in Asia as it goes on, you know, I kind of get lost in it. And I think sometimes the choruses and the, I don't know, just the vocals themselves, I think kind of annoy me.

I got to say, I mean, you know, my whole life I've rebelled against this sound. Sort of that easy listening smooth jazz. Like the thought of Steely Dan, you know, just kind of grossed me out. But I got to say, I'm a believer now. I love this record. And I feel like every time I listen to it, there's just more there to unpack. And I would put it way above like anything else in the, you know, sort of in that Yacht Rock realm. So I'm going to nominate it for the album Nerd's Hall of Fame.

Oh my God. Yeah. Steely Dan. He's doing it. 18 year old Don would be cringing. So yeah, so, you know, sort of, I don't know if you, do you call it a rock jazz fusion? I don't know, but there's something, it's unique. You know, I mean, we've listened to other sort of fusion records before and it doesn't quite sound like this. And I just feel like whatever this is, they've perfected it on this album. So what do you guys think? I feel very similarly to you Don.

I don't know how I'll feel in the future. In the morning? As I, yeah. As I try to dig in more on Steely Dan, but based on what I read and based on what I heard and being more into it every time I listen to it, I think I'm going to say yes. Oh boy. It is unique. It's got its own sound. There's no one else like it. And its attention to detail, I think is what drew me in the most. Andy. And here comes the shot between the eyes.

You know, like in my head, I'm like thinking about, you know, what defines an Andy Hoff record. And like this probably does qualify. Like it probably is the best yacht rock record, realistically. And it's well made. It just doesn't speak to me. Like I would even say that that jazz rock record that we listened to, the Tony Williams experience record felt much more alive to me than this record does. Yeah. But you know, the subtlety and the attention to detail is impressive. Oh boy. I don't know.

I think I might. Oh no. I think I might say yes. I'm going to kind of trust down a little bit on this one. Yeah. I'll say yes. Wow. You're right. Wow. I think that's really cool that you brought something that regardless of our experience with it, we were able to recognize some greatness. Yeah. Convinced us on the quality of this music, which is pretty impressive because if you asked me when we first heard this, if I would have picked any of these records, I would have said, hell no. All right.

Well, congratulations to Steely Dan with their 1977 record Asia. Excuse me.

I'd like to ask you a few questions. That's right, y'all. It's time. We're going to ask ourselves a question. Now if the album nerds podcast makes us millionaires, it's like when it makes us millionaires, I guess. Right. Yes. I think we're a penny airs right now. What expensive toy like a, you know, with a like yachts, you know, rich people throw around their, their cake and they get a yacht. What expensive toy would you buy? That's a good question. I would not buy a boat, man.

I had a boat growing up and they are a pain in the ass. I would not do that. Well, what, what if, but you can afford a boat with a cabin in it and all that stuff and you hire a captain to. Oh, like crew take care of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That could be fun. It could be fun. Travel the world maybe. Yeah. A 3d printer would be kind of fun to make like a little, little head of myself next to myself or a little, little mini Andy plastic.

I don't know much about 3d printers, but I feel like if you're a millionaire, you probably could do better than that. Well, you probably, most of your millions will be spent on the filament for it. So probably, yeah, that's, that's expensive. Oh, I've got a more exciting answer. No, I wouldn't say a more exciting one.

I don't think I would, I would get a boat either, but I just really want to pool, you know, our, our summers just seem to get more oppressive as time goes on or as I age and you know, I just want to kind of drift in a pool all summer long. I'm fine with even, you know, taking care of it and checking the pH levels. You know, I feel like I could spend my summers doing that. Yeah. It's like your own little personal lake. Yeah. You can get your own little raft as a boat.

And I would listen to yacht rock, I think. Also maybe some, maybe an arcade cabinet or something like an, like a real one. I have like in my office at school, I have like a two thirds size Pac-Man, but I want like the real thing. Oh, nice. So this stuff would be all in your palatial mansions, right? I mean, we're, we're assuming we have palatial mansions. Of course that would be the first thing. Okay. The album nerds mansion. I'd probably open a record store. Nice. Good idea. Start a business.

And not worry too much about making money, just having it be cool. A cool place to hang out. Maybe not even let customers in. Just a place to hang out, you know? So this is like an expansion of your record collection in like a bigger area. Exactly. But when, when artists come to town, they would get an exclusive invitation to come shop at my record store that no one else could shop in. What would you call this place? What would I call it? Let's see. Hmm. Like dude's den or something.

The dude hole. I don't know. The dude hole. Okay. No one's going there anyway, man. Don't worry about locking the door. That's my problem. So maybe I, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I would just combine a bunch of names of famous old record stores. So what about y'all? If you got that Skrill and you're a millionaire, what expensive toy, like a yacht or a mansion or whatever, what would you get? Let us know. Albiners.com slash discord. Oh, I sail.

I'm a sailor. I sail. The wind of the wind with the sky and everything. Oh, I love that movie. All right. It is my turn and as usual, I pick the album that is the most well-known, the most obvious mainstream pick you can do. So I went with Christopher Cross self-titled album from December of 1979. And why don't we start off with what is sometimes considered the penultimate got rock song, mostly because it's about sailing and it's called sailing.

And he's wearing a sunglasses, captain's hat combo and swaying back and forth to this. And I wear on the deck of a giant sailboat right now. Feel the waves rocking me gently to sleep. I'm just drifting in my pool. The seagulls are pecking my eyes out. So yeah, Christopher Cross, born Christopher Charles Gepert in May of 1951 from San Antonio, Texas. Does not sound like a Texas boy to me. He won five Grammy awards for this album. Wow. Holy moly. That's a Laugh-R-One record. I mean, that's...

Wow. Yeah. His other notable hits include Ride Like the Wind, Arthur's Theme, the best that you can do and Think of Laura from some other albums. He's known for his soothing voice, melodic hooks. It's a little more guitar based. He's a guitar player. There's a little more guitar on this than typically exists in the rock space. But his songs often evoke a sense of breezy escapism, romantic nostalgia, making him a key figure in a yacht rock genre in finger quotes.

The song itself was about escape from the mundane and just sailing off and forgetting your troubles. And he captured that really, really well. I loved this song as a kid. Every time I heard it, it made me feel happy. And I remember him winning those Grammys and thinking that was pretty cool. It was inspired by sailing trips he took as a kid with his friend Al, whose last name I'm not going to say. Because it might not be true. It was on Wikipedia. It says his name is Al Glasscock. I can't do it.

The three words I used to describe this album are sailing against the wind. I think this is like the end of the soft rock 70s. This may have been the final voyage. I think winning all those Grammys was the top of that. And pop music started to change dramatically shortly after this. The musical tides were changing, you might say. All right. So why don't we listen to another track from Christopher Cross? This one is called I Really Don't Know Anymore. I really don't know. I really can't see.

I really don't know anymore. I really can't see. With those strained voices, I feel like this is two dudes in neighboring stalls trying to relieve themselves. Right, seriously. I wonder if it was one of those in the studio, if they were staring at each other as they were singing. Like just nose to nose. Oh man. Yeah, Michael McDonald, man. He's just popping up everywhere all over this. All right. My three words describe this record. Is it in? Question mark. The reason I chose those words.

Wow. Ouch. Geez, man. I feel like this record is just, it's very well composed. It has a good structure to it, but I didn't get any emotion from this. It feels very castrated, I guess. Oh my goodness. Oh man. Christopher, I'm sorry. This track is well constructed and it's composed in a very logical manner. In a way that you would expect a more mainstream pop record to be composed where you have like, here's your verse, here's the refrain, here's the other verse.

I just found it a little bit, I guess, a little boring, I guess I would say. Lyrically, there's some good stuff. He's efficient. I like his lyric writing, but yeah, it is, I guess Sailing was one of the first songs digitally recorded and it sounds it. I mean, like with Steely Dan, you expect the sheen because everything's perfect. With this, some rough sounds, a little more. Yeah, it's a little more lively. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

It doesn't help that there's like almost zero low end on this at all. I know there is like some drums and bass, I assume on here, but you can hardly hear them at all. So why don't we jump to another one of the songs, a little more well known and no Michael McDonald, right? I don't believe so. It's probably creeping in the background somewhere. Maybe he's giving Christopher a light shoulder rub while he's singing. This is Never Be The Same. Never be the same without you here.

I'll live alone and hide myself behind my teeth. I feel like a lot of these songs could have been like television sitcom themes. I feel like a lot of themes from the 80s were sort of of this genre and this style. So the three words I chose to describe the album were soft, sweet, and sincere. So I think maybe the point of contention is the sincerity of the record because it does feel just very, very polished. But I think it's his voice or something.

I think there's a vulnerability or something that kind of comes out in his voice that I think gives the songs some emotion. Whereas if somebody else was singing it, I think maybe it wouldn't work. It feels like he means what he's singing, but I think it's just the production and the arrangements and the time period of how they were making music that, again, won five Grammy awards. So someone like that. Yeah, they sure did. A lot.

Yeah. And so I think when this genre is kind of at its worst, it's like I described it as sweet, but you could call it saccharin or something. It's like artificial sweetener. It tastes sweet, but it's, I don't know. It's not the same as sugar. It doesn't, I don't know. There's some sort of aftertaste or something that isn't quite right, and it's not real. But I think, at times listening to this record, maybe I kind of thought that. But overall, I think it's an album that's from the heart.

I think he is a talented songwriter. Like you said, he's efficient with the lyrics. All the songs are hooky. It almost did it. It is like the prototypical kind of yacht rock or soft rock album. Yeah, it's nine tracks. The three highlights will probably never be the same. Ride Like the Wind and Sailing. And Ride Like the Wind does get a little groovy, a little strutty, unlike the other tracks. It's got a little toad. I mean, no one you'd be afraid of, but there's some toad. Taste of toad.

That one has Michael McDonald too. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. So, Yacht Rock King, Christopher Cross, the self-titled Grammy winning album, Christopher Cross. Go check it out if you feel like doing some sailing.

Yacht Rock. Here's what I learned. Not a genre. It's a playlist. Yacht Rock feels like more of a title of a playlist of a bunch of songs that fit those criteria Don mentioned at the top. And when it's so long after the fact, I don't really think of it as a genre because no one intended to be that. Yeah, no one set out to make a Yacht Rock record. What do you guys think? I think this episode reaffirmed the value and what we're doing on this podcast, I think, for me.

I expected to just be in a state of terror for the last week listening to these records. I think that Asia record really from Steely Down there really showed me that there could be, I mean, I knew that there was the potential for something more to be in any of these genres. And I think that kind of restored my hope in this type of music and what we do here. So thanks for saving the show Don.

I do think genres and labels and stuff like that, I mean, for the most part, they're just there to kind of help market music. Not the case for this genre. This just seemed like, it's like a pejorative term, right? Yacht Rock, it was kind of like making fun of all of this music from the 70s and 80s. But yeah, so I mean, I enjoyed going on this journey. Voyage. Thank you. Voyage. Enjoying the boat. I'm glad I finally spent some time with Steely Dan and even Christopher Cross.

I only knew a handful of songs, so it was good to spend time with an entire record. So Yacht Rock, not rock. Yacht or not, not yacht. It's just gibberish. It's kind of a stroke. When it comes down to it, it's all just music and it's fun to use genres as a way to navigate these waters. And that's one to grow on. I'm your density. I mean, your destiny. All right. Well, Wodbot is out on the yacht right now, getting some rays. Yachtbot. That's right. Yachtbot.

She will be back next week, but in the meantime, we have a special edition album nerds episode for you. Next week is our 200th episode. So we are doing something a little special. Wow. You guys have been doing this a long time. Yeah. Doing it and doing it well, some would say. Doing it and doing it and doing it well. We're going to be taking a look at Rolling Stone's list of top albums of all time. They put out a list of 500 records.

We're going to be picking three records from the top 200 records of all time according to Rolling Stone to be featured next week. What's the twist? Well, the twist is they have to be albums and artists that we've never spoken about previously in our 200 episodes. So something new coming to you boys and girls next week. Also, I want to mention there's an ongoing Einhoff vote in the works.

If you have an opinion on Michael Jackson's 1979 album, Off the Wall, and you should, please go to the Album Nerds Discord, albnerds.com slash Discord, or our website, albnerds.com to cast your votes. Yay or nay. Does Michael Jackson's record belong in the Album Nerds Hall of Fame? All right. Well, what was your favorite Yacht Rock album? Have you read Rolling Stone's top 500 albums? What's your favorite? What else are you listening to? Let us know.

Join fellow Album Nerds on Discord at albumnerds.com slash Discord. You can email us at podcast at albumnerds.com. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Album Nerds. Also please subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite podcast app. If you want to support the show, you can do so via PayPal at albumnerds.com slash support. Thank you as always for listening to the Album Nerds podcast. We'll catch you next week for our 200th episode with three of the greatest albums of all time.

Whoa. All time. Catch everybody next week. Yep. Shuck the corn. Shuck the corn. Shuck the corn. Let me shuck you. Let me shuck you. I've been hating my family for years. Every time we have corn on the cob over the summer, I'm going to shuck the corn. Shuck the corn. Okay. Go shuck yourself. Wow. Aw shucks. Shuck a corn. Shuck a corn.