yacht rock xm station

First Listen: SiriusXM’s Yacht Soul

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Each year SiriusXM’s Yacht Rock Radio reignites some ongoing, mostly playful skirmishes among radio people and music fans. Is “Yacht Rock” what the term’s creators define it as — ’70s/early-’80s soft rock with some element of R&B/jazz/disco fusion? Is it what SXM plays — a wider version of soft pop from the late ’70s/early ’80s? Why are we canonizing this music from pop music’s doldrums in the first place?

But if you’re eager to play along with that discussion, SXM has just launched Yacht Soul, as a pop-up format currently appearing on SiriusXM’s channel 105 through July 8, after which time it will remain available on the SXM app. The channel is hosted by George Benson, whose reminiscences about songs and artists are interspersed several times an hour.

The new channel is a reminder of R&B’s place at the center of yacht rock. However much weight you want to put on them at a fraught time for pop music, I’d rather hear Benson’s “Give Me the Night” or “Turn Your Love Around” than a lot of other hits from the same period. In turn, Benson, Quincy Jones, Al Jarreau, and George Duke & Stanley Clarke were chief among the artists who were able to cross over during the worst moments of the “disco backlash” that kept other great things happening in R&B away from pop radio in 1980-82.

Like SXM’s Yacht Rock Radio, Yacht Soul is a broad mix of mellow R&B from the same era. The hook promos include some things that seem defining (Dennis Edwards’ “Don’t Look Any Further,” Bobby Caldwell’s “What You Won’t Do for Love,” Chaka Khan’s “Through the Fire”) and others that feel less likely (Evelyn King’s “Love Come Down,” Diana Ross’ “Love Hangover,” Natalie Cole’s “Sophisticated Lady”). Chances are you just disagreed with at least one of my characterizations. Such is the discussion.

Here’s Yacht Soul at 9:30 a.m. on July 3:

• Fourplay, “101 Eastbound” — early ’90s instrumental that seems like more of a fit for Smooth Jazz
• Brothers Johnson, “Strawberry Letter 23”
• Quincy Jones f/Patti Austin, “Something Special”  
• Kool & the Gang, “Too Hot” — preceded by a vignette of George Benson talking about witnessing the band’s ascent
• Brenda Russell, “New York Bars” — her hits (“So Good So Right” and “Piano in the Dark”) were nearly a decade apart, in 1979 and 1988; this is from a 1983 album
• Bill Withers, “Lovely Day”
• Patti Labelle, “New Attitude”
• Manhattans, “Shining Star”
• Average White Band, “School Boy Crush”
• L.T.D., “Love Ballad” — Benson talks about hearing the original for the first time: “One of the best songs I ever heard.” Later, he would have a 1979 hit with his own uptempo version
• Atlanta Rhythm Section, “So Into You” — It did crack the R&B chart (No. 93) in 1977. Not the hit single, but what sounded like a longer album version
• William DeVaughn, “Be Thankful for What You Got” — 1974 hit that seems prescient in this context
• Bee Gees, “How Deep Is Your Love”
• Lionel Richie, “All Night Long (All Night)”
• El DeBarge, “Someone”
• George Benson, “This Masquerade” — Benson talks about not knowing the Leon Russell original, or Russell, when the song was brought to him, and his initial reluctance to cover it, or include a vocal on the Breezin’ album

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Hey Sean, Checking out Yacht Soul a bit. A little surprised to hear some cover versions (Everbody Plays The Fool – Aaron Neville and I Never Can Say Goodbye – Issac Hayes), but they are smooth and the channel is inyeresting and easy to listen to. JH

Caught Yacht Rock Radio for the first time, today. Channel 311, had to go looking. In 45 minutes’ time, listening….never heard a single female singer.

I like the mix mainly because it stretches about 25 years, more than double the approximate 10 years of traditional yacht rock. My only complaint so far is “Caravan of Love” being listed as by the Isley Bros.

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Sean Ross is a radio business researcher, programming consultant, conference speaker, and a veteran of radio trade journalism at Billboard, Radio & Records, M Street Journal, and others. For more than a decade, his weekly writings have been collected in the Ross On Radio newsletter; subscribe for free here. https://tinyurl.com/mhcnx4u

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Yacht Rock Radio Ch. 17 rock

Yacht Rock Radio celebrates the smooth-sailing soft rock from the late '70s and early '80s. You'll hear artists like Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, Steely Dan and other titans of smooth music. It's the kind of rock that doesn't rock the boat!

Times Played: 102

Baby Come Back

Times Played: 101

So In To You

• Atlanta Rhythm Section  

Times Played: 99

Make It With You

Still The One

Times Played: 98

• Bill Withers  

Times Played: 97

Make a Little Magic

• Nitty Gritty Dirt Band  
• Nicolette Larson  

Times Played: 95

Laughter In The Rain

• NEIL SEDAKA  

Biggest Part Of Me

Times Played: 92

I'd Really Love To See You Tonight

• J.F.Coley  

• Boz Scaggs  

Times Played: 91

• John Stewart  

Goodbye Stranger

• Supertramp  

Escape (The Pina Colada Song)

• Rupert Holmes  

Diamond Girl

Times Played: 90

Kiss You All Over

• Robbie Dupree  

Smooth Operator

Times Played: 89

• Paul Davis  

Baker Street

• Gerry Rafferty  

Shower The People

• James Taylor  

Times Played: 88

After The Love Has Gone

• Earth, Wind & Fire  

Times Played: 87

I Love a Rainy Night

• Eddie Rabbitt  

That Girl Could Sing

• Jackson Browne  

I Just Wanna Stop

• Gino Vanelli  

Feels So Good

• Chuck Mangione  

Times Played: 85

Morning Dance

• Spyro Gyra  

You're The Only Woman

Lido Shuffle

Times Played: 84

Reminiscing

• Little River Band  

Times Played: 83

You’re Only Lonely

• J.D. Souther  

Times Played: 82

Let Your Love Flow

• Bellamy Brothers  

Fooled Around And Fell In Love

• Elvin Bishop  

I Believe In Love

• Kenny Loggins  

Times Played: 81

We're In This Love Together

• Al Jarreau  

Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)

• Looking Glass  

Times Played: 80

Show and Tell

• Al Wilson  

• Samantha Sang  

• Andrew Gold  

Heart To Heart

Times Played: 79

Turn Your Love Around

• George Benson  

Fool (If You Think It's Over)

• Chris Rea  

• Bob Welch  

Times Played: 78

Never Too Much

• Luther Vandross  

• Kool & The Gang  

Thunder Island

• Jay Ferguson  

Summer Breeze

Love Will Find A Way

• Pablo Cruise  

Whatcha Gonna Do

Times Played: 77

Cool Change

Searchin' So Long

Times Played: 76

Wishing You Were Here

Times Played: 75

How 'Bout Us

• Champaign  

Times Played: 74

• Bertie Higgins  

Times Played: 73

Sentimental Lady

Times Played: 72

What You Won't Do For Love

• Bobby Caldwell  

• Christopher Cross  

• Dobie Gray  

Times Played: 71

Leather And Lace

• Stevie Nicks  
• Don Henley  

Running On Empty

Give Me the Night

It Never Rains In Southern California

• Albert Hammond  

Into The Night

• Benny Mardones  

Afternoon Delight

• Starland Vocal Band  

Times Played: 70

• Kim Carnes  

Moonlight Feels Right

How Much I Feel

Devil Woman

• Cliff Richard  

Couldn't Get It Right

• Climax Blues Band  

Times Played: 69

Stumblin' In

• Chris Norman, Suzi Quatro  

Ride Like The Wind

Times Played: 68

HOLD THE LINE

Times Played: 67

Show And Tell

Nobody Does It Better

• Carly Simon  

Times Played: 66

Just Remember I Love You

Times Played: 65

Silly Love Songs (Remastered)

• Michael Martin Murphey  

Times Played: 63

You Can Do Magic

Times Played: 62

Save It For A Rainy Day

• Stephen Bishop  

You Are The Woman

Times Played: 60

Listen To The Music

• Doobie Brothers  

• Daryl Hall  
• John Oates  

One Of These Nights

Right Down The Line

Times Played: 59

I Keep Forgettin' (82)

• Michael McDonald  

Times Played: 58

The Things We Do For Love

• Fleetwood Mac  

Times Played: 56

Arthur's Theme

So Far Away

• Carole King  

Times Played: 55

Every Kinda People

• Robert Palmer  

Times Played: 54

Ride Captain Ride

• Blues Image  

Sister Golden Hair

Heart Of The Night

Times Played: 53

I Really Don't Know Anymore

Times Played: 52

Dream Weaver

• Gary Wright  

© 2024 xmplaylist.com All rights reserved.

Not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with Sirius XM Radio Inc. The official SiriusXM website can be found at siriusxm.com . The channel names, marks, emblems and images are registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Yacht Rock Radio

• Edit source

The name of the station comes from the 2005 online video series Yacht Rock , which helped coined the term of the previously called West-Coast sound or adult-orientated rock (AOR) style of soft rock.

Description [ ]

Yacht rock 311 [ ].

"SiriusXM's tribute to Yacht Rock celebrates the smooth-sailing soft rock from the late '70s and early '80s. You'll hear artists like Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, Hall & Oates and other titans of smooth music. It's the kind of rock that doesn't rock the boat!"

• Interestingly, this channel is unavailable on the SiriusXM channel lineup .

Is there a yacht rock station on siriusxm?

Is There a Yacht Rock Station on SiriusXM?

Yacht rock, a genre of soft rock music that emerged in the 1970s, has gained a significant following in recent years. The genre is characterized by its smooth, laid-back sound, often featuring lush vocal harmonies, jazz-influenced instrumentation, and lyrics that focus on themes of love, relationships, and escapism. With its nostalgic appeal and timeless sound, it’s no wonder that yacht rock enthusiasts are always on the lookout for dedicated stations that play their favorite tunes.

The Short Answer: Yes, There is a Yacht Rock Station on SiriusXM!

For fans of yacht rock, the good news is that SiriusXM, a popular satellite radio provider, offers a dedicated channel that caters to their musical tastes. The Beach (Channel 14) is a 24/7 station that plays a mix of yacht rock, soft rock, and adult contemporary music from the 1970s and 1980s. The channel is part of SiriusXM’s "Pop" package, which requires a subscription to access.

What to Expect on The Beach

The Beach is a carefully curated station that features a wide range of yacht rock classics, including hits from iconic artists like The Eagles , Fleetwood Mac , The Doobie Brothers , and America . The channel also plays songs from other influential yacht rock bands, such as Loggins & Messina , Ambrosia , and Player .

Here’s a breakdown of what you can expect to hear on The Beach:

• Classic Yacht Rock Hits : Expect to hear a steady stream of yacht rock staples, including "Hotel California," "Sailing," "What a Fool Believes," and "Reelin’ in the Years."
• Deep Cuts and Album Tracks : The Beach also plays deeper cuts and album tracks from yacht rock artists, giving listeners a chance to discover new favorite songs.
• New Music : The channel occasionally features new music from contemporary artists who are influenced by the yacht rock sound.
• Special Programming : The Beach occasionally airs special programming, such as live concerts, interviews, and themed shows, which are sure to delight yacht rock enthusiasts.

Other SiriusXM Channels that Play Yacht Rock Music

While The Beach is the primary yacht rock station on SiriusXM, there are other channels that also play yacht rock music. Here are a few notable examples:

• The 70s (Channel 7): This channel plays a mix of 1970s music, including yacht rock, rock, pop, and disco.
• The 80s (Channel 8): This channel plays a mix of 1980s music, including yacht rock, new wave, and pop.
• Classic Vinyl (Channel 26): This channel plays a mix of classic rock, including yacht rock, from the 1960s to the 1980s.

For yacht rock enthusiasts, the answer to the question "Is there a yacht rock station on SiriusXM?" is a resounding yes! The Beach is a dedicated channel that plays a wide range of yacht rock classics and deep cuts, making it a must-listen for fans of the genre. Whether you’re a longtime fan of yacht rock or just discovering its charms, The Beach is the perfect destination for your musical escapades. So, grab your sunglasses, pour yourself a glass of wine, and get ready to sail away with The Beach on SiriusXM!

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Thurston Howell Band: Your Premier Yacht Rock Spectacular

Set Sail with SiriusXM’s Yacht Rock: Tune to 14 & 311

Embark on a Smooth-Sailing Musical Voyage with Yacht Rock Radio

Welcome aboard the musical cruise of Yacht Rock Radio on Sirius XM! If you’ve been searching for “what channel is yacht rock on Sirius XM?”, you’ve just found your smooth-sailing destination. Yacht Rock Radio, also known as Yacht Rock 311, offers a commercial-free haven where the soft rock songs of the late ’70s and early ’80s come to life.

Your Port of Call for Classic Soft Rock

Yacht Rock Radio celebrates the very best of ’70s/’80s smooth-sailing soft rock. It’s where the iconic voices of Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, Hall & Oates, and other titans of this mellow musical era’ll serenade you. This station encapsulates the essence of what was once known as the West-Coast sound or adult-orientated rock (AOR), now lovingly termed ‘Yacht Rock’, thanks to the 2005 online video series that coined this term.

Where to Tune In

Find your musical getaway on Sirius XM Radio 14 during the summer months, and on Sirius XM Radio 311 for the rest of the year. Yacht Rock Radio ensures that your listening experience is always top-notch, whether you’re basking in the summer sun or cozying up during the cooler months.

Why Choose Yacht Rock Radio on Sirius XM?

• Non-Stop Music: Immerse yourself in hours of uninterrupted soft rock classics.
• Expertly Curated: Each song is a handpicked gem, ensuring the finest listening experience.
• Seasonal Variations: Two channels for year-round enjoyment – Channel 14 in summer and 311 otherwise.

Set Sail with Sirius XM’s Yacht Rock Radio

Join the legion of yacht rock enthusiasts who’ve made Sirius XM’s Yacht Rock Radio their go-to station for smooth tunes. Whether you’re a die-hard fan of this genre or exploring it for the first time, channels 14 and 311 are your gateways to an era of music that soothes the soul and lifts the spirits.

Stay Connected with Thurston Howell

Keep in tune with the latest from Yacht Rock Radio and other yacht rock news by staying connected with us here at Thurston Howell. We’re your guide in the world of yacht rock, bringing you closer to the music that makes life a smooth sail.

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Confessions of a Cover Band: Yacht Rock Revue croons the hits you love to hate

"I never would've guessed I'd be doing what I'm doing now. The 23-year-old me would punch me in the face."

One night in 2012, a man in a Ronald Reagan mask paused beneath a stop sign in the Old Fourth Ward. Armed with a stencil and a can of white spray paint, he transformed the sign into a tribute to a 1978 hit by a mostly forgotten Canadian pop crooner named Gino Vannelli: “I just wanna STOP & tell you what I feel about you, babe.”

“I Just Wanna Stop” is the kind of song whose words most Americans over 40 know despite never consciously choosing to listen to it. After peaking at no. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978, the tune never quite disappeared, becoming the aural equivalent of a recurring wart. The song found a second life—an endless one, as it turns out—in the musical nether region where the smooth, soft-rock hits of yesteryear remain in heavy rotation. Yes, that’s “Africa” you’re hearing in the dentist’s office. And “What a Fool Believes” in line at CVS. And that faint melody burrowing into your brain while on hold for the next available customer service agent? That’s “Steal Away.” Songs like these, disparaged by critics in their time then jokingly christened “yacht rock” by a comedy web series in 2005, are now the soundtrack to American tedium.

They’ve also become the source of a very good—if conflicted—living for the man who defaced the stop sign: Nick Niespodziani, the singer, guitarist, and de facto leader of the wildly popular cover band Yacht Rock Revue , which tours the country, headlines 1,000-plus capacity venues, and occasionally even plays with the original artists behind these hits.

At the time of the Vannelli vandalism, Yacht Rock Revue had begun to graduate from a local curiosity to a national one. Niespodziani’s sister videotaped the incident and posted it on YouTube. They then printed T-shirts of the sign and, when Vannelli performed at the Variety Playhouse, they got one to him.

On a gray Monday afternoon not long ago, Niespodziani was standing at this crossroads, looking at the sign, trying to explain the motivation behind the prank. “We had this idea, so we videotaped,” he said. “It was definitely guerrilla marketing.” Also, he was pretty drunk.

The episode seems to capture something ineffable about Yacht Rock Revue—part fandom, part joke, part self-promotion, each element infused with irony. When YRR takes the stage at Venkman’s, an Old Fourth Ward restaurant and nightclub co-owned by Niespodziani and bandmate Pete Olson, the band is fully in character, complete with gaudy shirts and sunglasses. They crack jokes about each other’s moms and theatrically highlight multi-instrumentalist Dave Freeman’s one-note triangle solo during America’s “You Can Do Magic.”

“This music isn’t easy to perform,” Olson says. Yacht rock songs tend to be filled with complicated chord changes. All seven band members are accomplished musicians, and Niespodziani, who trained for a spell as an opera singer, is a rangy vocalist, capable of gliding through the high notes in Hall & Oates’s “Rich Girl,” Michael McDonald’s gruff tenor in “I Keep Forgetting,” and Dolly Parton’s amiable twang in “Islands in the Stream,” without seeming to strain. He, Olson, and drummer Mark Cobb first played together in Y-O-U, a band they formed at Indiana University in the late ’90s. They found scant support for original music there, so they relocated to Atlanta in 2002.

Photograph by Mike Colletta

Y-O-U built a buzz in Atlanta, thanks to Niespodziani’s catchy, Beatles-esque songs and the group’s playful gimmicks. They performed, straight-faced, as Three Dog Stevens, a sad-sack trio playing what they called “sandal-rock” (a made-up, synth-heavy genre defined by its purveyors’ predilection for wearing sandals with socks); they covered Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” entirely on keyboards while dressed as the Royal Tenenbaums; they created a YouTube mockumentary series about a competitive jump-roping team. “Comedy has always been part of what we do,” Niespodziani said. “We were doing anything to get noticed because we felt we had good songs but just couldn’t break through with them.”

“I said, ‘That sounds like hell on Earth.’ He was like, ‘But you’re going to make a lot of money.’ So we did it.”

In 2008, Y-O-U was booked every Thursday at the 10 High club in Virginia-Highland. They’d stage “Rock Fights,” playing dueling sets of covers by artists like Bob Seger, John Mellencamp, and INXS, or rejigger Y-O-U songs as soul rave-ups with horns and backing singers, or do a standup comedy night. Yacht Rock Revue was just another of these goofs: Put on silly clothes, and play songs everybody knows but nobody really likes—or claims not to. It was Cobb and guitarist Mark Dannells who came up with the idea. Dannells thought about calling it “A.M. Gold” but Cobb had recently seen a viral web series called Yacht Rock and felt like the term would resonate. Niespodziani went along because his friends needed his vocals. Two band members wore wigs to that first show, and, at one point, Niespodziani stripped off his shirt. People loved it. The club’s booker invited them back the next Thursday. The gig sold out. He asked them to do it every Thursday.

“I said, ‘That sounds like hell on Earth,’” Niespodziani recalls. “He was like, ‘But you’re going to make a lot of money.’ So we did it.”

Most cover bands are awful. But because they play well-known songs, they often secure regular, paying gigs that bands playing original music can’t. Even for the good ones, there’s a ceiling. Few ever perform further than 20 miles from wherever they played their first gig. What’s more, performing other people’s music for a living carries a degree of shame. Cobb has heard the mutterings about Yacht Rock Revue: “Why are these guys playing covers? They could write their own songs. They don’t need to hide behind a gimmick.”

Most of the guys in Yacht Rock Revue—which also includes bassist/vocalist Greg Lee and keyboardist/vocalist Mark Bencuya—had already spent half a lifetime dragging gear into dank basement bars to play for a few bucks and even fewer people. They did this in an era when the music business was cratering. The rise of the internet taught a generation of consumers that music is free, devaluing the dream to which musicians dedicate their lives.

When Yacht Rock Revue started in 2008, Dannells was nearly 40. “It’s not like the world is beating down the door of 40-year-old rock stars,” he says. Today, Yacht Rock is a business, owing its success partially to the corners of the business that haven’t collapsed: live music and merchandising. Besides their public shows, Yacht Rock Revue plays a steady stream of well-paying corporate gigs. They also sell lots of captain’s hats, T-shirts, and other swag. The success of the franchise means it’s been more than five years since any of them had a day job. Niespodziani and Olson created a company, Please Rock , that provides the bandmembers and their families with health insurance, 401Ks, and all the other trappings of comfortable, upper-middle-class stability few musicians ever achieve. All this grants bandmembers some real creative freedoms. “I just released a whole record of orchestral music,” Dannells says. “I don’t care if it sells. I just do it for enjoyment.”

Niespodziani shuttered Y-O-U years ago but still writes elegant power-pop songs for his other band, Indianapolis Jones . But the difference between his two bands’ profiles is stark. Troy Bieser, who has been working on a documentary about Yacht Rock Revue, says he’s seen this in the juxtaposition of the footage he’s compiled. “I’ve seen Nick going through the journey of being thankful for the success but it also feeling ill-fitting,” Bieser says. “That existential dilemma has followed him.”

Niespodziani knows whenever Yacht Rock plays anywhere, that’s a slot a band like Indianapolis Jones can’t get. “We’re a big part of the problem,” he says. As a 39-year-old father of one, who’s worked hard to get what he has, he isn’t about to give it up, but he’s also honest about the compromises he’s made and doesn’t hide from the question that is a natural byproduct of his own success: When a joke becomes your life, how do you keep your life from becoming a joke?

“I never would’ve guessed I’d be doing what I’m doing now,” he says. “The 23-year-old me would punch me in the face and leave me for dead.”

Yacht rock was mostly made in the late ’70s and early ’80s, but the genre wasn’t named until 2005 when JD Ryznar, a writer and actor, created the Yacht Rock web series with a few friends. The video shorts imagined the origins of songs like the Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes,” Toto’s “Rosanna,” and Steely Dan’s “FM.” The music, Ryznar says, was well-crafted, like a yacht, and recurring nautical imagery in songs like Christopher Cross’s “Sailing” or on Loggins and Messina’s album Full Sail made the term fit. According to Ryznar, true yacht rock has jazz and R&B influences, is usually produced in California, and frequently involves a rotating group of interconnected studio musicians. The term was never intended to be a pejorative—“we never thought it was silly music,” Ryznar says—but the web series is most definitely comedy, and feelings about the music itself tend to be buried under layers of hipster irony, warm nostalgia, and veiled contempt. Yacht rock songs are finely constructed: They’ve got indelible pop hooks, but they’re decidedly professional, not ragged and cool like punk or early hip-hop, which were canonized among the music of that era.

For the first Yacht Rock Revue gig, much of the set list came from a compilation CD that Cobb had burned titled The Dentist’s Office Mix. It included songs like Player’s “Baby Come Back,” Ambrosia’s “The Biggest Part of Me,” and Rupert Holmes’s “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).” “I’d put it on at parties and just see what the reactions would be,” Cobb says. “It was a weird, guilty pleasure.”

Niespodziani’s initial feelings about the music were uncomplicated. “I wasn’t a fan,” he says. “I was really into music that made people feel something, that had some grit and humanity to it. The ethos I thought was important in rock ’n’ roll was rebellious fun crossed with a heart-on-your-sleeve kind of thing. Yacht rock doesn’t do any of that. It doesn’t rebel.” He found a lot of yacht rock to be technical, clinical, and sterile. “Sophisticated for the sake of being sophisticated.”

Onstage, Niespodziani is the picture of unapproachable retro cool. Tall, with shaggy hair and an angular face, he hides behind large, dark sunglasses and frequently surrenders a thin half-smile. In other words, he personifies the classic, arrogant, coked-up, late-’70s rock frontman. In person, he gives off nearly the opposite impression. Over coffee, he’s thoughtful, earnest, and self-deprecating. His sharp facial features are accentuated by wide-lensed prescription glasses, and, having traded the polyester shirts he favors onstage for a camouflage green hoodie, the vibe Niespodziani exudes is hardcore music geek. Olson, who has known Niespodziani since they were in fourth grade in Columbus, Indiana, says when they met, “Nick was the nerdy kid who was good at math and jump-roping.”

Photograph by Emily Butler

Yacht Rock Revue, for Niespodziani, is a part he plays: “I’m almost more an actor than a musician.” He and his bandmates spend hours prowling vintage stores looking for the retro leisure wear that they don onstage—and then a not inconsiderable amount of money getting those old clothes tailored to fit. “It’s a war of attrition,” he says. “You find something that might work, and then it’s itchy or it smells or holes develop because the shirt is older than I am. You have to be shopping at all times.” They once did a gig in street clothes, but it felt wrong. “Polyester,” he says, “is our armor.”

Sometimes that armor hasn’t been enough for Niespodziani. During the band’s first few years, they played weekly at the 10 High. “I would drink a lot and almost sabotage myself, sometimes onstage, and make fun of it,” he says. “People would ask me about the band, and I’d talk down about it and act like I was too cool. I didn’t lash out at people, but it was strange to get well-known for something that didn’t make me feel good about myself. I’d get drunk onstage to deal with it.”

His bandmates certainly noticed, but, for the most part, they let their friend work through it. “He’s been the moodiest about it,” Cobb says. “He just hates Rupert Holmes’s ‘Escape (The Piña Colada Song).’ Hates it. But he knows it goes over well.” So when Niespodziani’s got to play it, he’ll often deadpan an introduction comparing Holmes to da Vinci and Picasso. “By talking about how great it is, it helps me shed that song’s terribleness.”

Niespodziani believes the ironic distance he puts between the guy he is onstage and the guy drinking coffee at Ponce City Market is fundamental to the band’s success. “Because we thought—or at least I thought—I was too cool to be doing this, everything has keyed off what the audience reacts to, whether it’s the clothes we wear, the sidestep dance we do, whatever. The audience has been the head of the snake. We’ve just been following it.” It helps that with more than 500 songs in their repertoire, the band doesn ’ t burn out too badly on any tune. “The only song we have to play is ‘Africa.’” The 1982 hit by Toto, by a band made up of talented but largely anonymous studio musicians, has become something of an Internet meme itself, with multiple think pieces devoted to untangling its allure. “Part of it may be the audacity of the synthesizer sound,” Niespodziani says. “They’re just so cheesy. The chords are fairly complex and pretty unexpected. The way it goes to the minor key in the chorus is kind of a cognitive disconnect. And when you listen to the words, it’s not really about anything. Maybe that’s why it’s so quintessentially yacht rock. It’s not so much what the words are saying, it’s how they make you feel, this combination of pure joy crossed with reminiscing.”

Despite his ambivalence about the music, Niespodziani is first among equals within the band. He sings lead on more songs than anyone else, and it’s his judgment they trust when adding songs to their catalog. He has a system: “Generally, the more a song annoys me, the more likely it makes sorority girls want to eat each other’s brains. Also, almost every song would be an encore for the band we’re covering. So, those are the basics: Does it annoy me? Are girls going to like it? Would it be an encore for the band we’re covering?”

“I’m almost more an actor than a musician.”

Others in the band are more unabashed about the music. “I’ve always loved all this stuff,” says Lee, the bassist. “You have to love it before you can play with it in that comedy sense and do it right.” This ability to walk that line between having fun with the music and making fun of the music has won over many of the original artists. When the band first reached out to guys like Dupree, Gary Wright (“Dream Weaver”), and Player’s Peter Beckett, some artists disdained the term “yacht rock” and feared being treated as a joke. Dupree was an early convert and evangelized about the band to his peers, touting their musicianship and enthusiasm. He says those who eventually performed with Yacht Rock Revue were “staggered that they were playing in front of 4,000 people who knew every word to their songs.”

The genre’s rise as a cultural touchstone—Jimmy Fallon has been a big booster, inviting Dupree, Cross, McDonald, and others to perform on TV, and there’s now a SiriusXM station devoted to it—has benefited these artists. Their Spotify and YouTube streaming numbers have risen noticeably. “It’s made a big impact financially,” Dupree says. “Even the skeptics have seen the power of it.”

For a while, the band had a bit of a good-natured Twitter beef with the creators of the Yacht Rock web series. Ryznar admits he initially felt like the band had hijacked his idea, but now his only real gripe is Yacht Rock Revue’s liberal definition of yacht rock. “Half their set is incredible yacht rock,” Ryznar says. “The other half, they play way too much Eagles, America, and Fleetwood Mac. Those aren’t yacht rock bands.”

The band makes no apologies. As Niespodziani puts it, “Yacht rock is what we say it is now.” That’s not just bravado. Yacht Rock Revue trademarked the term “yacht rock” for live performances, so other acts can’t use it without permission. The maneuver helped snuff out competition from other cover bands but occasionally puts them in conflict with some of the genre’s originators. When Cross’s manager tried to assemble a “Yacht Rock” tour featuring Cross, Orleans, and Firefall, it ran afoul of the trademark.

“We said, ‘If you want to call it Yacht Rock, we’ve got to be the [backing] band,’” Olson says. That compromise collapsed when Cross’s manager “wanted a piece of the trademark and of all our earnings over three years.” Yacht Rock Revue sent a cease-and-desist letter instead.

The band’s set list is anchored in the classic late ’70s, early ’80s yacht-rock era but can stretch to include songs as old as the late ’60s or as recent as the early ’90s. Of course, there’s a balance to be struck: If they go too far afield, they risk becoming just another cover band, but there are other considerations to take into account, too. As Cobb explains, “Nothing about Whitney Houston is in the genre, but when we play ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody,’ the chicks go crazy, everybody orders another round, the bar sells out of Tito’s and Red Bull, and they’re like, ‘When can you come back? You broke alcohol records.’”

The band’s audiences have evolved over time. The earliest shows were heavy on hipsters and fellow musicians. Then, those fans brought their parents. At a Buckhead Theatre gig in March, the crowd leaned toward balding guys in button-down shirts and platinum-blond women wearing expensive-looking jewelry. Niespodziani once called yacht rock “the music of the overprivileged,” which was a joke, but also not. Getting older, wealthier fans out to shows is an impressive accomplishment most artists would envy, but it has changed something fundamental about Yacht Rock’s appeal. “When we started, it was people elbowing each other, laughing at this music,” Niespodziani says. “Now, there’s no irony.”

On a night off during a Vegas stand in 2015, the entire band went to see Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band perform at the Pearl Theater in the Palms Casino. Starr began doing these tours in 1989, fronting a band of aging rockers like Gary Wright, Steve Lukather (Toto), and Gregg Rolie (Santana, Journey), whose names and faces you might not recognize but whose songs you certainly would. Just past the midway point in the show at the Pearl, Lukather stepped to the mic, and Starr began beating out a familiar rhythm on the drums. As Lukather picked out the first few notes on the guitar and the synths pumped out the insistent melody, the song was instantly recognizable: “Africa.” In the theater balcony, Cobb recalls looking across at Niespodziani and seeing something change in his friend. “I just watched Nick’s face and, all of a sudden, it was as if this weight lifted off him.”

The Beatles had always been Niespodziani’s favorite band. “Now, I’m watching Ringo Starr, and he has to play fucking ‘Africa’ every night, too,” Niespodziani says. “He was in the Beatles! That was a life-changing moment for me.” Starr and his band were touching many of the same nerves in the audience at the Pearl Theater that Yacht Rock Revue touches all the time. “When we started Yacht Rock, I didn’t like the music we were playing. I didn’t like myself for being in a cover band. I had some dark times. It’s been a journey for me to get okay with it. That was a pretty key moment. Once you get to a certain point in the music business, everybody’s hustling. I’m not going to look down my nose at anybody for doing anything that makes it possible to feed their family by singing songs.”

Seeing Starr go yacht rock was a significant step that’s made enjoying Yacht Rock Revue’s triumphs a little easier. For years, Olson and Niespodziani waited for interest in yacht rock—and their band—to fade. Opening Venkman’s was a hedge against that. But Yacht Rock Revue’s stock continues to rise. Their touring business has grown 375 percent since 2014. “It’s not a fad,” Niespodziani says. “This is going to be our biggest year by far.” They play increasingly larger venues and have recently started booking dates overseas, including this summer in London.

The question is, where else can they take this, literally and figuratively? Back in 2013, the band quietly released a five-song EP: four original songs and a cover of—what else?—“Africa.” They used to occasionally drop an original tune into their shows, sometimes announcing it as a “Hall & Oates B-side.” The crowds were amenable, kind of. “It’s hard when they know every word to every song,” Niespodziani says. “They don’t come for discovery; they come for familiarity.” That’s a truism any band who has ever had a hit knows all too well. The essential appeal of Yacht Rock Revue—and yacht rock—is a combination of nostalgia and escape, a yearning for the simpler, easier time these songs evoke. Yet Niespodziani has been wondering lately if it’s possible to pivot fans to his own songs, either with Yacht Rock Revue or Indianapolis Jones.

“That’s still my dream,” he says, “to have one song that matters to somebody the way ‘Steal Away’ matters to people. No matter what else I do in life, if I don’t ever get over that bar, part of me will feel like I failed at the one thing I wanted. I don’t know if I can ever let go of that. I don’t know if I’m ready to face that darkness.”

In 2013, during a commencement speech at Syracuse University, the author George Saunders told graduates, “Success is like a mountain that keeps growing as you hike up it.” Niespodziani brought this quote up to me while we were having coffee. He knows his life is nothing to complain about. He lives a rarefied existence where he gets paid a lot of money to play music. But clearly, the mountain grows in front of him, and the hike up isn’t always easy. He’s still prone to self-deprecating asides about his band, he still kinda envies the Robbie Duprees of the world—but, hey, he doesn’t need to get drunk onstage anymore, and he doesn’t lose sleep wondering if he’s a force for good or evil in the world. That stop sign at the crossroads in the Old Fourth Ward isn’t an omen or a cautionary tale. It’s simply a funny story that makes people smile. He’s just working on becoming one of them.

“The way I really made peace with it is, it occurred to me that everywhere we went, everyone was so happy to see me,” he says. “These people, it’s the highlight of their week to come sing along with these tunes. If your job is making people happy, that’s a pretty good calling.” He leans back in his chair and smiles. “My job is to make it okay for everybody else to have fun. That’s kind of cool.” He gets quiet for a moment and shrugs.

This article appears in our  July 2018 issue .

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A genre of music that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, yacht rock is characterized by its smooth melodies and polished production popular among yacht-owning individuals during this era. The music often features lush arrangements and a clean, polished sound that is easy on the ears, with catchy lyrics and harmonious vocals. The overall feel is relaxed and laid-back, suitable for leisurely activities — like sailing on a yacht.

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Some of the most iconic yacht rock artists include Steely Dan, Toto, Michael McDonald (both solo and with The Doobie Brothers), Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins, and Hall & Oates.

Today, yacht rock continues to be celebrated for its timeless appeal. Its smooth sounds continue to evoke a sense of nostalgia and relaxation, making it a beloved genre for many music enthusiasts.

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