What is ‘Yacht Rock’? Yacht Rock is the affectionate nickname for the lush West Coast sound of the 1970s and ‘80s. Broadly speaking, it’s soft rock jazzed up with soulful flourishes, twinned with aspirational lyrics yearning for a better life. An evocative grouping of songs with a shared DNA, years after they were originally recorded.

Yacht Rock is enjoying reappraisal by a new generation of music lovers driven by the genre's sonic sophistication, as well as nostalgia for a Miami Vice-tinted past.

A Yacht Rock Odyssey has been curated by broadcaster, writer and performer Katie Puckrik into four separate musical voyages of discovery that are the epitome of smooth — gently funky grooves polished to perfection by blue chip session musicians and producers. Katie’s intro to the genre sets the scene, with track-by-track annotation providing background, recalling her critically-acclaimed BBC TV series I Can Go for That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock.

Featuring artists long associated with the genre including Michael McDonald, Toto and Average White Band, they sit alongside Carly Simon, Robert Palmer, Robbie Dupree, Stephen Bishop and the Pointer Sisters, with a sprinkling of stardust by Olivia Newton-John and Christopher Cross, all performing the kind of music piped through quadrophonic speakers on a seventies Sunseeker as it heads out to sea.