Sorting out Dad Rock, Yacht Rock, and this whole ‘Song of the Summer’ business

It’s midsummer so music can be heard drifting everywhere: stores, out of cars, from backyards, and through parks and campgrounds.

It’s a glorious three months of shared musical experiences — and because summer is so special, the season calls for some special music.

Here are three things to consider as you sample all the music coming your way over the next six weeks or so.

In my small home town north of Winnipeg, there is a circular manmade lake and beach a couple hundred feet across from an old limestone quarry. Years ago, on a hill overlooking the lake’s south side, the concession stand dolled out soft drinks, potato chips, and various frozen treats. But what I remember most was the bullhorn-type speaker on its roof blaring out tiny tunes from one of three of Winnipeg’s Top 40 stations of the era.

To this day, I associate certain songs with my summers swimming at Kinsmen Lake. Summer Breeze from Seals and Crofts is one of them. It was my song of the summer of 1973. (Yes, it came out the previous August but it was getting too chilly to swim outdoors in Manitoba by then. I must have picked up on it the following year.)

A song of the summer used to be a very personal and subjective thing, although there’s always been a media aspect of it. As early as 1910, newspapers were musing about the year’s “summer song.” It’s possible that the first declared song of the summer was Yes, We Have No Bananas, which sold a million copes of sheet music through the warm months of 1923.

In the ensuing decades, certain songs were fated to fill the roll such as The Lovin’ Spoonful and Summer in the City in 1966. Other songs like the aforementioned Summer Breeze also showed up at the right time. If you grew up in 1979, you’ll remember The Knack’s My Sharona being everywhere.

Sometime in the mid-1990s, the concept began to be formalized, codified, and exploited by the recorded music industry. The next few years saw many attempts to crown a specific track as the song of that year’s summer. MTV had a bracket-type competition in 1999 that brought the concept to more people. Since the mid-2000s, declaring a song of the summer has become a sensation and obsession. Billboard helped institutionalize the competition by publishing a retroactive chart that listed songs of the summer going back to 1985 using archival sales and radio play data.

But what makes a song eligible? In the modern sense, it’s a track with its release timed for release in mid-to-late spring so it has a chance of peaking at the height of the season. Songs are almost always up tempo, in a major key, and have severe earworm attributes. It also helps if the title or a lyrical excerpt can be turned into a slogan or meme. Much money and promotion are shoveled into songs in hopes of turning it into a cultural event.

Daft Punk’s Get Lucky was released on April 19, 2013. It ticked all the boxes (happy, fun, danceable, an earworm-y hook, and mildly risqué) and quickly shot up multiple music charts. Fans made upwards of 40,000 of their own videos incorporating the song. The year before that, it was Psy and Gangnam Style with that wonderfully goofy dancing.

What are we looking at for the summer of 2024? There are maybe two dozen contenders at this point of the year.  Drake is hoping it won’t be the Kendrick Lamar diss song Not Like Us. Dua Lipa has made strides with Illusion. Maybe Too Sweet from Hozier? (Sorry, Katy Perry. Your Woman’s World single was supposed to be a major comeback and summer song. Nope. It was DOA.)

It’s now di rigueur for everyone — music fans, DJs, playlisters, radio, newspapers, websites, industry publications — to weigh in on what the true song of the summer is so the only way to settle this is with hard numbers. Billboard tracks contenders and now includes streaming data in addition to sales and radio play. Come Labour Day, Billboard will tally up all the stats songs have achieved since the June equinox and declare an official “Song of the Summer” for 2024. Your opinion may vary, of course.

If Dad is on the BBQ or working out in the garage, he might have some music on. That music has been stereotyped as “dad rock.” The term seems to have its origin in the British music press of the 1990s when it was used to describe some of the more retro-ish aspects of Britpop (Think Oasis, Suede, and Kula Shaker). The concept spread further thanks to a 2007 Esquire article on the Wilco album, Sky Blue Sky by Rob Mitchum. He called it “an album of unapologetic straightforwardness. Sky Blue Sky nakedly exposes the dad-rock gene Wilco has always carried but courageously attempted to disguise.”

While it’s not a genre, dad rock (or “dadrock”) has come to describe a type of older rock that appeals to generations (men mostly, but not exclusively) who still like to rock but are long past their mosh pit years. It is their musical comfort food, songs essential to the years when they came of age musically, which is somewhere between the time you enter high school in your early teens and when you’re kicked out into the real world in your early 20s. It used to be a derisive term, but it’s a thing unto itself now.

Because we’re all getting older, dad rock evolves with each summer with more acts being added. There’s a lot of classic rock — Led Zeppelin, The Stones, Deep Purple — but the type now also includes Slipknot, Rob Zombie, Linkin Park, System of a Down, Muse. Even older emo dads will put on some My Chemical Romance while cutting the lawn.

While many young’uns look on these artists and songs as highly uncool — they think Drake and Cardi B make the best music in the world — true dad rock fans will remain unfazed.

What began as another pejorative term is now a semi-respectable type of soft rock for summertime listening. It’s the soft of highly produced melodic soft rock that conjures images of heading to the club for a sail with Muffy and Biff.

The first person to come up with this designation seems to be JD Rynzar who in 2005 started an online video series featuring this music. He had the image of a yuppie yacht owner in mind when selecting songs. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was also inspired by the musical tastes of Patrick Bateman, the main character in American Psycho. He loved Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, and Huey Lewis and the News.

I blame Christopher Cross’ treacly 1980 hit Sailing for starting this phenomenon. The song came from a specific era in the corporatizing of rock (c. 1974-1985) when the amps were turned down and subtle jazz elements were introduced, along with smooth soul sounds and a dash of R&B. An electric piano is common, melodies are light and breezy, and the production is top-notch often using the best session musicians available. Stereo systems get a good workout from many yacht rock tracks.

But all soft rock qualities. Anything from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album is far too respectable to be yacht rock. But Michael Jackson and Thriller? Fill yer boots. Steely Dan, though, fits. Michael McDonald-era Doobie Brothers is perfect but anything with Tom Johnson on vocals should be left to classic rocks stations. Journey? Absolutely. REO Speedwagon? The ballads, for sure. Little River Band? Perfect. Toto? How can you not? Supertramp? Cue it up. Eagles? You bet. And bring Don Henley, too.

Yacht rock has become such a big deal over the last few years that even SiriusXM has a seasonal satellite channel devoted to it. I accidently ran across it the other day and was dismayed to find that this gem is now considered yacht rock.

Whatever music you choose for your summer, remember the following:

1. Every generation of young people believes that their music is the best of all time.
2. There’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure.
3. Respect all music. Listen to what you like.

Happy listening.

—

Alan Cross is a broadcaster with Q107 and 102.1 the Edge and a commentator for Global News.

Subscribe to Alan’s Ongoing History of New Music Podcast now on Apple Podcast or Google Play