Whilst I am spending quite a bit of time with a variety of genres this week (including weird indie and some pop-house stuff), I do manage to squeeze in a few yacht rock gems into the playlist now and then. Here were a few highlights this past week-
T'Bell - Postman (Replay, 2000)
Obscure Swedish AOR/Westcoast one shot record from...wow, fifteen years ago. The album itself has a solid mix of pomp rock and other stuff, but this particular song is hilarious. You've got Jay Graydon-esque guitar heroics juxtaposed against lines like "Don't let the postman in / Don't let him into your mom". What more can I say? Comedy gold!
Geyster - I Won't Let You Down (Knight Games I, 2015)
This one-man modern Westcoast extravaganza has been a recent revelation:
Geyster, AKA Gaël Benyamin, is a singer/songwriter/producer/everything else who lives in Paris has been producing all kinds of soft rock / AOR / R&B crossover goodness since the early 00's. This particular song, the opening cut of the first of the THREE Knight Games albums he released last week, is smooth as smooth can get. Super talented dude.
Check out all his albums on Bandcamp here if you dig modern soft rock as much as I do.
The Coral - More Than A Lover (Butterfly House, 2010)
Some of you might be familiar with this bunch from the silver age of the Brit-pop scene at the end of the 90's, but I consider their last album
Butterfly House to be the best thing they've done...like ever. There's a wisp of the ol' 60's in there, but you can easily hear vintage
America and
Fleetwood Mac clawing their way up out of that chorus.
Crossfade - Flying (White On Blue, 2004)
This is the Westcoast project of former
Yngwe Malmsteen singer Goran Edman, and whilst they're mixed bags...the good stuff is absolutely phenomenal. Like this song for instance - you could easily see Steely Dan having cooked this up on Aja's B-side or the like.
Al Jarreau - Girls Know How (Girls Know How OST, 1982??)
One of those really great early 80's yacht rock crossover songs that got featured in some random movie but never ended up making the jump to CD or a digital format. I'd give half my pinky for a decent rip of this sucker, but alas...