I very much enjoyed the Yacht Rock documentary. I’ve never liked that kind of music – probably because of its ubiquity growing up – but it was a well-told story that had a light touch, and the participants seemed philosophical about it all. Even one of the Steely Dans’ involvement seemed a humorous nod to their grumpy reputation rather than casting any mean-spirited pall over the flick. I still don’t like the music, mind, but that’s OK. Not everyone has to like everything.
Rick Beato who, like many of us here I’m sure, I hold in high esteem, wasn’t having it. Such was Rick’s umbrage on his recent video about the doco I had to turn to my son and say “OK, Boomer”.
My thoughts, though, are these: I can only think of Northern Soul as another genre whose boundaries are defined by retrospective curation (rather than, say, New Romantic who were labelled and defined as such at the time). Were NWOBHM acts termed as such at the time or was this retrospective? With musical culture moving the way it is, is there likely to be any organic genres that have enough shared to purpose to be regarded as a » Continue Reading.