April 22, 2007

Really Smooth Music

My good friend Rob was particularly disgusted by my Venerable Bede joke (sorry, Rob), so I’m going to try to make it up to him by posting one of his found history picks.

Video podcast Yacht Rock parodies the silky sounds of late-70s and early-80s pop acts like Steely Dan, Chicago, Hall and Oates, Toto, and Christopher Cross, in each episode reenacting the “secret history” of a different yacht rock classic. As host Hollywood Steve tells us from his “music nook”:

From 1976-1984 the radio airwaves were dominated by really smooth music, also known as Yacht Rock. These yacht rockers docked a remarkable fleet of number one hits, and every song has a story behind it. Let me tell you one.

Episode 1, for example, tells the story of how new Doobie Brothers member, Michael McDonald (with help from former Loggins and Messina front man Kenny Loggins) came to write “What a fool Believes,” transforming the Doobies’ earlier, guitar-rock sound into the yacht rock of their later years. Episode 2 documents the 1978 “back alley” song writing duel between Loggins and McDonald and yacht rock bad boys Hall and Oates. Episode 3 explains Loggins’ transition from the smooth sounds of yacht rock to the rockin’ beats of his Caddyshack and Top Gun years. Episode 6 is the most overtly “historical” of the bunch, featuring piercing insights from Ferris State University history professor, Dr. “Big Rapids” Gary Huey. Huey provides the Plymouth Plantation pre-history of yacht rock, complete with a doubly-anachronistic cameo by none other than Jethro Tull (appearing here as a kind of unholy hybrid of the 18th century agriculturalist and the 1970s hard rock flutist, Ian Anderson). From there it just gets weirder.

Have a good weekend, and in the immortal words of yacht rock producer, Koko Goldstein, “don’t loose the smooth.” Now I’m off to find me an ice cold Tab.

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