Daryl Hall Unloads On Yacht Rock

Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates fame) has blasted the genre known as “yacht rock,” describing it as a “fucking joke.”

Appearing on a recent episode of Rick Rubin and Justin Richmond’s Broken Record podcast, Hall stated that he doesn’t understand why Hall & Oates have been included under the banner of yacht rock.

A term penned by J. D. Ryznar, Hunter D. Stair, and Lane Farnham in the mockumentary series Yacht Rock eventually inspired the film Music Box: Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, directed by Garrett Price and released last year.

“This is something I don’t understand,” Hall began. “First of all, yacht rock was a fucking joke by two jerkoffs in California, and suddenly it became a genre. I don’t even understand it. I never understood it… It’s just R&B, with maybe some jazz in there. It’s mellow R&B, smooth R&B. I don’t see what the yacht part is.”

Hall stated that Hall & Oates’ inclusion as a yacht rock band occurred because their music didn’t fit conventional genre labels. He 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.”

You can listen to the podcast on Apple Music.

However, Hall’s bandmate, John Oates, has a different take on the matter. “I think Yacht Rock was the beginning of this whole Hall & Oates resurrection,” he said in a 2007 interview with Seattle Weekly, per Variety. “They were the first ones to start to parody us and put us out there again, and a lot of things have happened because of Yacht Rock.”

Earlier this year, Hall shared that he and Oates would never reunite amidst a bitter feud. The pair entered a legal battle in 2023 after Hall announced he was suing his former bandmate, claiming he was “blindsided” by Oates’ alleged plan to sell a stake in the business. Oates described the claim as “inaccurate.”

Throughout their career, Hall & Oates have become one of the most successful music duos of all time, releasing 21 albums that sold over 80 million units worldwide.

In 2014, Daryl Hall and John Oates were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2016. Before then, the pair were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003. Their 1982 album, H2O, saw Hall & Oates land at #3 on the ARIA Albums Chart, with the single Maneater peaking at #4 on the Singles Chart.