Donald Fagen Had a Vicious Response to New ‘Yacht Rock’ Doc
Donald Fagen of Steely Dan is one of the notable figures who declined to sit for an interview for the new film Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary.
People reports that in the film, director Garret Price calls up Fagen to ask if he’d be willing to be interviewed for the documentary about “this genre.” Fagen asks Price what the genre is, and he says, “Um, yacht rock.”
Fagen, unamused, answered, “Oh, yacht rock. Well, I tell you what. What don’t you go f— yourself?”
Needless to say, Fagen is clearly not too fond of the “yacht rock” label. Fortunately for those that dig the niche genre, plenty of other figures did sit for new interviews for the film.
As previously reported, yacht rock artists that appear in the film via new interviews include Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, and Toto’s Steve Porcaro, Steve Lukather, and David Paich.
Fans of the genre who also sat for new interviews include De La Soul’s Prince Paul, Vampire Weekend’s Brian Robert Jones, Thundercat, The Roots’ Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Mac DeMarco, and Fred Armisen.
The film takes a look at the major yacht rock stars of that era, including Cross, Steely Dan, Toto, Loggins, and McDonald. The film also takes a look at the rise and fall in popularity of these artists.
HBO notes in a press release, “The emergence of MTV and slick music videos crowded out the genre but, in the 1990s, hip-hop artists started to sample yacht rock and the music gained a new audience and new respect for its high standard of songwriting excellence, becoming a cultural touchstone for playful ribbing by comedians. Filled with the sounds of the era, incredible archival footage of recording sessions and performances, and humorous, self-reflective interviews, the film lovingly embraces the key players of the scene and the genre they didn’t even know they were creating.”
Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary premiers on Friday, November 29 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and Max.
A Fun Story About a Classic Kenny Loggins Song
Kevin Cronin — and apparently a bunch of other people — were offered the classic tune “Danger Zone” before Kenny Loggins recorded it for the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun.
Cronin touched on how he was offered to record the track in a May 2022 interview with WCSX’s Big Jim’s House saying, “First I told my side of the story, and Kenny [Loggins] looked at me like he’d never heard any of that before. Then he told his side of the story, and I’d never heard any of that…I think [the producers of ‘Top Gun’] pitched it to [Jefferson Starship/Starship singer] Mickey Thomas. I keep hearing other singers who go, ‘Oh, yeah, they pitched that to me, too.'”
Obviously, “Danger Zone” was offered to a number of singers before Loggins was tapped to sing the hit. So, why did the REO Speedwagon singer turn it down?
“I heard the demo, and it just didn’t do it for me,” recalls Cronin. “It sounded like a disco song to me, and it didn’t have any of the jangly guitars and vocal harmonies that I kind of like. And I also, honestly, I didn’t think that I could do the song justice, and the fact that Kenny got it…Kenny took a song that if you really strip it down, there’s not a whole lot going on there song-wise. But Kenny took it and just made magic with it, and so it turned out as it should have been. And it’s one of Kenny’s biggest songs. I think he closes his show with it at this point. So I’m glad it worked out that way.”
