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Kennedy: Boomers, yacht rock is coming for your radio

From left, Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald, John McFee and Pat Simmons of The Doobie Brothers accept the ASCAP Voice of Music Award at the 32nd annual ASCAP Pop Music Awards in Los Angeles on April 29, 2015. The Doobies are among the artists at the forefront of the musical movement called yacht rock. / Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/File From left, Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald, John McFee and Pat Simmons of The Doobie Brothers accept the ASCAP Voice of Music Award at the 32nd annual ASCAP Pop Music Awards in Los Angeles on April 29, 2015. The Doobies are among the artists at the forefront of the musical movement called yacht rock. / Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/File

By Mark Kennedy December 7, 2024 4 min read

Lately, the universe has been trying to educate me about something called yacht rock.

If you know about yacht rock, consider yourself one of the cool kids. If you don’t (and I didn’t), join the club.

My introduction came via SiriusXM radio, which has a whole channel devoted to yacht rock — which, put simply, is a rebranding of certain soft-rock artists from the 1970s and 1980s.

I must say, there’s something about this music that lands differently on my Baby Boomer ears in 2024 than it did in, say, 1980 when it just seemed soft and mushy.