Yacht Rock Madness

The Waterways TV 'Yacht Rock Madness' battle needs your vote! Finally, a bracket battle that resonates with boaters! Water Ways TV has been piggybacking off March Madness in the most musical way possible—working to crown the ultimate Yacht Rock anthem.

We're down to the Awesome 8 in four final brackets. Vote now! (Quick Note - the Instagram app is required - the polls only appear on mobile stories, not desktop. Blame the algorithm gods, not us).

Keep following as the competition sails ahead: the winner will be crowned on Monday, April 7th, which coincidentally the same day there’s apparently some kind of basketball game happening.

It started with 32 perfectly chilled classics, which became 16, and now we’re down to the Awesome 8. Here's how it shakes out:

The Awesome 8 – Round of 4 Brackets in the Quarter-Final Showdown:

Bracket A - "You Make My Dreams" – Hall & Oates vs. "Kiss On My List" – Hall & Oates

Bracket B - "Sailing" – Christopher Cross vs. "Lido Shuffle" – Boz Scaggs

Bracket C - "Steal Away" – Robbie Dupree vs."What A Fool Believes" – The Doobie Brothers

Bracket D "Thunder Island" – Jay Ferguson vs. "Baby Come Back" – Player

These eight titans of tone will be narrowed down to the Captain’s Quartet. Then they'll face off in the semi-final showdown to select the Dockside Duo, where one song will reign supreme as the smoothest of all!

Yacht Rock may sound like a term that’s been around since the heyday of captains' hats and smooth sax solos, but surprisingly, it’s a fairly recent creation. Coined in the mid-2000s by a group of comedy writers behind a cult web series of the same name, “Yacht Rock” retroactively defined a very specific sound from the late 70s to early 80s. Think polished production, jazzy chord changes, and harmonies so smooth they practically came with a silk ascot.

Artists like Michael McDonald, Toto, Christopher Cross, and Hall & Oates weren’t setting out to create a genre — they were just making radio gold. But the resurgence of interest and rebranding as "Yacht Rock" gave these tunes new life, turning them into a beloved subgenre celebrated by fans both ironic and sincere. It's a vibe. It's a lifestyle. And it now has serious staying power.

If you want to dive deeper into where Yacht Rock came from, why it matters, and how it became cool again, check out our episode of Water Ways: Ontario featuring Alan Cross, the legendary music journalist and longtime host of The Ongoing History of New Music.

You can watch it below. Now go Yacht Rock The Vote for an election of lasting consequence!