Best Yacht Rock Songs
Yacht rock is soft rock made roughly between 1976 and 1984 by session-grade musicians: clean production, jazz chords, and no distortion anywhere. Steely Dan's "Peg", the Michael McDonald-era Doobie Brothers, Christopher Cross's "Sailing" and Toto's "Rosanna" are the canon.
The genre was named retroactively by a 2005 web series, which is why its edges are still argued over. This list sticks to the tracks nobody would throw overboard.
By Emilis, who builds and plays Aux Battles
Every track hand-picked, with the reason beside it written by someone who plays the game. Album art and clean or explicit flags come from Spotify.
If you only play one
Steely Dan - Peg (1977)
Three minutes that contain the whole genre: session players, jazz chords, a hook auditioned to death, and not a distorted sound anywhere.
Think you'd pick better? Start a room on "Yacht Rock", everyone submits a song, and your friends vote blind.
- 01
Steely Dan - Peg
1977
Seven guitarists were tried before Jay Graydon's solo made the cut. That level of obsession over one eight-bar passage is what the genre is.
- 02
The Doobie Brothers - What a Fool Believes
1978
The most yacht rock song ever recorded, and the one everyone agrees on. The keyboard figure is doing a job normally given to a bassline.
- 03
Christopher Cross - Sailing
1979
Literal enough to be the genre's namesake and good enough that the joke never stuck to it. Won Record of the Year, which nobody remembers.
- 04
Toto - Rosanna
1982
Jeff Porcaro's half-time shuffle is the most copied drum pattern of the decade. Everything else on the track is arranged around leaving it room.
- 05
Michael McDonald - I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)
1982
The voice the whole genre is measured against, over a bassline Warren G later built a career on. Two eras, one groove.
- 06
Kenny Loggins - This Is It
1979
Co-written with McDonald, which is effectively a certificate of authenticity. Loggins spent the next decade making the opposite kind of record.
- 07
Hall & Oates - I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)
1981
A drum machine and almost nothing else for the first minute. Proof the genre was never soft as a limitation, only as a choice.
- 08
Boz Scaggs - Lowdown
1976
The record that assembled the players who would go on to form Toto. Everything the genre became is already in this arrangement.
- 09
Bobby Caldwell - What You Won't Do for Love
1978
The horn line is one of the most sampled in hip-hop, which is how a soft rock record ended up underpinning half of the 90s.
- 10
Player - Baby Come Back
1977
The purest pop song here. Two chords of tension in the verse, complete release in the chorus, no ideas above its station.
Think you'd pick better? Start a room on "Yacht Rock", everyone submits a song, and your friends vote blind.
- 11
Ambrosia - Biggest Part of Me
1980
A prog band who reinvented themselves as a soft rock act and did it better than the bands who had always been one.
- 12
Robbie Dupree - Steal Away
1980
Close enough to "What a Fool Believes" that it drew a lawsuit. Included precisely because the genre's ceiling and its imitations sit this close together.
- 13
Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street
1978
The saxophone that launched a thousand arguments about whether this counts. It does: the production is immaculate and nothing is in a hurry.
- 14
George Benson - Give Me the Night
1980
Quincy Jones producing a jazz guitarist as a pop singer. The bridge between yacht rock and the disco records that were supposedly its opposite.
- 15
Seals and Crofts - Summer Breeze
1972
Earlier than the canon's window and softer than most of it. The toy piano riff and close harmonies are the genre's soft-rock ancestry.
- 16
10cc - I'm Not in Love
1975
British art-rock built from hundreds of overdubbed voices. Not yacht rock by the strict test, but its soft, glossy production is the genre's ancestor.
- 17
Chicago - If You Leave Me Now
1976
Chicago at their softest, with strings and a falsetto hook. The ballad side of the sound, before it had a name.
- 18
Al Stewart - Year of the Cat
1976
Scottish, so outside the strict reading, but the long piano intro and the sax solo make it feel right on deck.
- 19
England Dan & John Ford Coley - I'd Really Love to See You Tonight
1976
Soft-rock harmonies at their most polite. Essentially a phone call set to music, which is about as intense as the genre ever gets.
- 20
Michael Franks - Popsicle Toes
1976
Jazz players backing a soft, witty vocal. The jazz half of the genre's DNA with nothing else in the way.
- 21
Ned Doheny - Get It Up for Love
1976
A cult favourite from the edge of the canon: airy West Coast soul that collectors know far better than radio ever did.
- 22
Firefall - You Are the Woman
1976
A breezy, flute-touched love song from a Colorado band. The softer side of 70s rock radio at its most innocent.
- 23
Orleans - Still the One
1976
A bright, guitar-led single about a long marriage. Upbeat enough to open a playlist without breaking the mood.
- 24
Atlanta Rhythm Section - So Into You
1976
A Southern band going smooth: a slinky groove and an understated vocal. Proof the sound reached well beyond Los Angeles.
- 25
Steely Dan - Deacon Blues
1977
The Steely Dan song most often named as the genre's peak. A jazz-chord ballad about dreaming of a musician's life, played by the session pool that defined the sound.
- 26
Paul Davis - I Go Crazy
1977
A slow-burning ballad that lingered on the charts for most of a year. Smooth, patient and in no hurry to get anywhere.
- 27
Stephen Bishop - On and On
1977
A gentle, Caribbean-tinged ballad about a man who keeps losing. A voice soft enough to be almost conversational.
- 28
Sanford & Townsend - Smoke from a Distant Fire
1977
A one-off hit with a tight, funky groove and a big chorus. Exactly the kind of single the genre was built on.
- 29
Dave Mason - We Just Disagree
1977
A breakup with no villain, played gently. His best-known solo single and an easy fit at the softer end of the canon.
- 30
The Doobie Brothers - Minute by Minute
1978
The title track of their Michael McDonald era. His voice and electric piano turned a boogie band into the centre of the genre.
- 31
Toto - Georgy Porgy
1978
The band's session players showing off their pocket, with Cheryl Lynn on the duet vocal. Later sampled widely in R&B and hip-hop.
- 32
Little River Band - Reminiscing
1978
Australian, so outside the strict definition, but the horn arrangement and soft-focus nostalgia are the genre exactly.
- 33
Pablo Cruise - Love Will Find a Way
1978
California beach-band yacht rock: bright guitars, a light groove and nothing heavy anywhere near it.
- 34
Exile - Kiss You All Over
1978
A slow, simmering groove that spent weeks at number one. Smoother than anything else the band ever did.
- 35
Gino Vannelli - I Just Wanna Stop
1978
A big voice over a smooth jazz-pop arrangement. A hit at the time and a fixture of yacht rock playlists ever since.
- 36
Ambrosia - How Much I Feel
1978
Ambrosia's other perfect soft-rock single. Piano, a gentle groove and a vocal that never pushes.
- 37
Nicolette Larson - Lotta Love
1978
A Neil Young song turned into a smooth, string-laden single. Yacht rock's talent for sanding the edges off something rough.
- 38
Kenny Loggins - Whenever I Call You "Friend"
1978
A duet with Stevie Nicks, co-written with Melissa Manchester. Two of the era's biggest voices sounding completely relaxed.
- 39
Larry Carlton - Room 335
1978
Named after his studio, with the guitar tone that made him a Steely Dan session regular. No vocal, just the sound the whole genre was built on.
- 40
Bill LaBounty - This Night Won't Last Forever
1978
A deep cut that collectors swear by, and a hit for Michael Johnson the following year. The right players and a perfect chorus.
- 41
Christopher Cross - Ride Like the Wind
1979
An outlaw story over a cool, flowing groove, with Michael McDonald's backing vocal arriving like a second lead.
- 42
Eagles - I Can't Tell You Why
1979
Sung by Timothy B. Schmit with a soul-ballad feel a long way from the band's country rock. Their smoothest moment.
- 43
Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Piña Colada Song)
1979
The genre's guilty pleasure, a story song with a twist ending. Its glossy production is exactly why it keeps getting pulled into these lists.
- 44
Steve Winwood - While You See a Chance
1980
British, so it fails the strict test and passes the feel test. The synth intro builds like a sunrise.
- 45
Boz Scaggs - Look What You've Done to Me
1980
From the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, co-written with David Foster. Boz Scaggs at his most heartbroken and most polished.
- 46
Bertie Higgins - Key Largo
1981
A soft-rock tribute to old Bogart and Bacall films with a gentle tropical sway. The literal boat imagery helps.
- 47
Kenny Loggins - Heart to Heart
1982
Co-written with Michael McDonald and David Foster, which is about as close to the genre's core personnel as a song can get.
- 48
Michael Jackson - Human Nature
1982
Written by Toto's Steve Porcaro and played by Toto members, which makes the best-selling album of all time partly a yacht rock record.
- 49
Donald Fagen - I.G.Y.
1982
The opener of his first solo album, an ironic look back at 1950s optimism about the future. Possibly the cleanest production of the whole era.
- 50
Al Jarreau - Mornin'
1983
A jazz vocalist making unapologetic adult pop. The vocal arrangement in the last chorus is more complex than anything else on this list.
Settle it properly
Lists are one person's opinion. Put the same question to your friends instead. Everyone submits their answer to
"Yacht Rock"
and the room votes blind on whose pick was best. Free, no account, about four minutes.
Start the BattleWhat actually counts as yacht rock
The working definition is narrow: American, roughly 1976 to 1984, made by studio musicians, harmonically closer to jazz than to rock, and produced with obsessive cleanliness. Distortion, aggression and rough edges disqualify a record instantly.
The other test is personnel. A remarkably small group of players (Porcaro, McDonald, Graydon, the Steely Dan session pool) appear across most of the canon, which is why the records sound related despite coming from different bands.
This is also why the edges are contested. "Baker Street" is British, Hall & Oates are closer to Philly soul, and neither would pass a strict reading. Both feel right, and feel is what the genre was named on.
Why it came back
The name was invented in 2005 by a comedy web series, so the genre spent its first years as a joke about soft rock and boat shoes. What kept it alive was that the joke did not survive contact with the records.
Hip-hop had already been mining the same catalogue for a decade. Warren G built "Regulate" on Michael McDonald, and once producers were sampling this music seriously, the case for it as craft rather than kitsch made itself.
The current revival is largely about production. In an era of loud, compressed masters, records mixed to sound expensive and unhurried land as a genuine relief, which is a better reason to listen than nostalgia.
Best Yacht Rock Songs, answered
What is yacht rock?
Smooth, jazz-inflected soft rock made mostly in Los Angeles between about 1976 and 1984, characterised by clean production, session-musician precision and complex chords. The term was coined retroactively in 2005 by a web series, not by the artists.
Is Toto yacht rock?
Yes, and "Rosanna" is one of the defining tracks. The band formed out of the session players on Boz Scaggs's Silk Degrees, which is close to the genre's point of origin. "Africa" is the bigger song and the less typical one.
What is the most yacht rock song ever?
The Doobie Brothers' "What a Fool Believes" (1978). It scores on every criterion: Michael McDonald on vocals, jazz harmony, immaculate production and no rock aggression anywhere in the arrangement.
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