Daryl Hall Slams ‘Jerk Offs’ Who Started Yacht Rock

Daryl Hall has no time for the term yacht rock, and he’s not afraid to share his feelings on the matter.

During an appearance on the Broken Record podcast, the singer dismissed the subgenre and expressed scorn for the men who invented it.

“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 declared. “I don’t even understand it. I never understood it.”

The phrase yacht rock emerged in 2005 after comedians JD Ryznar, Hunter Stair, and Lane Farnham used it as the basis for their popular web series. What started as a joke is now a commonly recognized subgenre, attributed to a lot of soft rock from the ‘70s and ‘80s. While many music fans have embraced yacht rock, Hall clearly despises the term.

“It’s just R&B,” the singer insisted, “with maybe some jazz in there. It’s mellow R&B. It’s smooth R&B. I don’t see what the yacht part is.”

Daryl Hall Says People ‘Couldn’t Label’ Hall & Oates’ Music

Hall’s previous band, Hall & Oates, has frequently been placed in the yacht rock boat – a fact which likely contributed to his feelings about the term.

“People misjudged us because they couldn’t label us,” Hall explained, noting how Hall & Oates’ Philadelphia soul sound blurred the lines between R&B and rock. “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.”

Hall split with his longtime musical partner John Oates in 2023, a breakup that included lawsuits over the duo’s catalog and business entities. Despite the discourse, Hall still performs plenty of classic Hall & Oates material during his solo shows. The singer is on tour with Squeeze’s Glenn Tilbrook through the fall.