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Pop rock, adult contemporary and blue-eyed soul legend Daryl Hall will throw a fit if you ever call his music “yacht rock” — as if he could ever be that smooth.

In 2005, J.D. Ryznar, Hunter D. Stair and Lane Farnham debuted the first episode of their mockumentary video series Yacht Rock at Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab’s short-film festival Channel 101, unaware that they were about to recontextualize a decades-old movement in popular music forever. Yacht Rock told the comedically dramatized stories behind the biggest artists and smoothest hits of the “West Coast sound” era, as it was previously known, back when kings like Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald blended soft rock, R&b, soul, jazz and about a half-dozen other genres into a new form of relaxing music.

As the series title suggests, Ryznar, Stair, Farnham and their collaborators dubbed this sailor-friendly sound “Yacht Rock.”

Despite running for just 12 episodes...

Don’t get Daryl Hall started on yacht rock.

During a recent appearance on the Broken Record podcast, Hall expressed agitation that Hall and Oates’ music keeps getting lumped in with the term “yacht rock.” “This is something I don’t understand. First of all, yacht rock was a fucking joke by two jerk offs in California and suddenly it became a genre,” Hall lamented. The “two jerk offs” likely refers to J. D. Ryznar, Hunter D. Stair, and Lane Farnham, who created the 2005 web series Yacht Rock and have since been credited with coining the term. “I don’t even understand it. I never understood it.”

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He continued, genuinely irritated by the term’s persistence in popular music culture despite it being just an amalgam of other genres. “It’s just R&b with maybe some jazz in there,” he said. “It’s mellow R&b.

On November 29th, HBO will release its documentary about the late 1970s to early 1980s soft rock wave that is now colloquially known as “yacht rock” as if the guys who invented the term didn’t already nail the untold story.

In Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, HBO will continue its Music Box Film series with an examination of an oft-mocked but still beloved era of music history, complete with profiles of yacht rock legends such as Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross and, of course, Steely Dan. Over the last few years, these artists have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity as a new generation of listeners continue to fall in love with the smooth, soulful, jazzy fusion of rock and roll and other predominantly Black genres played by white guys with flowing hair and bushy beards kissed by an ocean breeze.

With Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, HBO hopes to examine...

This story was originally published on June 26, 2015

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, musical artists like Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Steely Dan, Toto, Hall and Oates, and dozens of others regularly popped up on each other’s records, creating a golden era of smooth-music collaboration.

And on June 26th, 2005, an internet phenomenon was born. In 12 short but memorable episodes — first via the the short-film series Channel 101 and then online — Jd Ryznar, Hunter Stair, Dave Lyons, Lane Farnham and their friends redefined an era and coined a term for the sultry croonings of McDonald,...

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, musical artists like Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Steely Dan, Toto, Hall and Oates, and dozens of others regularly popped up on each other's records, creating a golden era of smooth-music collaboration.

And 10 years ago (June 26th, 2005), an internet phenomenon was born. In 12 short but memorable episodes — first via the the short-film series Channel 101 and then online — Jd Ryznar, Hunter Stair, Dave Lyons, Lane Farnham and their friends redefined an era and coined a term for the sultry croonings of McDonald, Fagen, et al.