Daryl Hall & John Oates are widely considered one of yacht rock's biggest acts, but don't tell that to Hall. He has never understood why his music is a part of the genre.
Appearing on the Broken Record podcast, Hall discussed his legacy with co-host Justin Richmond, but refused to accept that he is a yacht rocker.
“This is something I don’t understand," Hall said. "First of all, yacht rock was a f**king joke by two jerk offs in California and suddenly it became a genre. I don’t even understand it. I never understood it.”
The term "yacht rock" was first coined in 2005 as the name of a popular web series created by J. D. Ryznar, Hunter D. Stair and Lane Farnham that parodied the soothing AM radio sounds of soft rock music released in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
While yacht rock has become wildly popular with music fans and resurrected the careers of many forgotten musicians, some folks, like Hall and Steely Dan's Donald Fagen are not fond of the idea.
“It’s just R&B with maybe some jazz in there,” Hall continued. “It’s mellow R&B. It’s smooth R&B. I don’t see what the yacht part is.”
I guess he forgot to check out HBO's recent film, Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, a first-hand explainer featuring interviews with many of his peers.
As for why he doesn't think Hall & Oates should be included in any yacht rock playlists or even in the discourse, Hall added, “People misjudged us because they couldn’t label us. They always came up with all this kind of crap, soft rock and yacht rock and all this other nonsense. And none of it, none of it really describes anything that I do really.”
Listen to the episode below.