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Anteater · 12-02-2014, 08:10 PM

One key element in both writing and marketing (which I do a lot of) is establishing a sense of relevancy with your would-be prospects...or in this case, you my dear readers. "But Ant-" some might ask, "-how is yacht rock relevant when it died back in the 80's?"

Well, allow me to elucidate: it never died at all. Rather, smoove music simply melted into the collective's musical consciousness after the early 80's and, slowly but surely, has risen out of the darkness into something resembling mainstream viability here in the second decade of the 00's thanks to some key albums (*cough* Random Access Memories *cough*), bands and artists across the world. Evidence: some snapshot jams from 2012 to the present day with a lot of yachtage going on...

Quote:

Mayer Hawthorne - 'Backseat Lover'
(from 2013's Where Does This Door Go?)

People originally pegged ol' Mayer as a Motown boy a couple years back, but his last album Where Does This Door Go? was a big surprise: the late 70's L.A. jazz-rawk aesthetic thrown into a contemporary juicer stuffed with danceable R&B and hip-hop...AKA, a great companion album to what the boys in Daft Punk cooked up and stormed the charts with. In particular, this song would have fit right in with anything Michael McDonald was doing in '82, and its not even the best song on the record. And the Kendrick Lamar fans are, of course, aware of 'Crime'.

Quote:

Brian McKnight - 'Get U 2 Stay'
(from 2013's More Than Words)

What happens when Boondocks sex-icon and R&B legend Brian McKnight goes Steely Dan on an audience that wouldn't know 'Peg' from Meg? Pure ****in' magic son, that's what. Makes you wonder ($$s aside) why he's spent the majority of his career doing bland quiet storm when he absolutely slays in this sort of arena.

Quote:

Paul Bertolino - 'Union Square'
(from 2012's Where The Buildings Hit The Sky)

Brooklyn based Paul Bertolino is an indie singer-songwriter in the Stephen Bishop / Gordon Lightfoot vein of things and crazily talented to boot. He's got the yacht rock look and style down to a science, but its kind of uncanny how evocative he is on his own merits as a soft-rock artist. Cool dude, plus he has this awesome bandcamp too.

Quote:

Nate Williams - 'Show Me'
(from 2014's Got To Let Go)

Another interesting guy to keep an eye on, blending the whole dubstep-tinged R&B trend with a Westcoast-AOR arrangement sensibility. He's from some Welsh village I couldn't pronounce at gunpoint, but this guy is a yacht rocker at heart with more soul than a shaman at the summer's solstice.