My Thoughts After Binging the Brat Pack Documentary
My husband and I just devoured “Brats,” the new documentary from Andrew McCarthy about his time in the Brat Pack, a term lifted from a New York Magazine cover story penned by David Blum that examines the cultural impact of the young actors ushering in a new era of young adult filmmaking in 1985. Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, Timothy Hutton, and Rob Lowe shared the good and the bad about being labeled a Brat Packer.
The Brat Pack Documentary Made me Remember…
These coming-of-age movies hit in 1985 and 1986, a time when I was in a big transition. I graduated high school and met my husband during my college orientation at Monmouth University. There was a sample of every high school crowd represented in John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club:” a jock, a burnout, the emo chick, and the prom queen. Much has been written about the cultural impact seeing those characters had on our Gen X demographic, but it was the soundtracks to those movies curated by John Hughes that shaped who I am today.
RELATED: Remembering My Teen Idols Fandom
The “Pretty in Pink” soundtrack blew through the doors at WMCX, Monmouth’s radio station, (read my article about the 50th anniversary), around the same time I did for my first taste of communing with an audience across the airwaves. Suzanne Vega’s “Left of Center” featured a neurotic gal’s diary entry strummed to a guitar decades before Taylor Swift was born. A new British Invasion was born on that soundtrack, with Liverpool’s Echo and The Bunnymen (“Bring on the Dancing Horses”) and Manchester’s The Smiths (the aching “Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”). My lifelong love affair with Michael Hutchence began on INXS’s “Do Wot You Do.” These songs are still on regular rotation in the car (when I’m out of range from WJRZ, of course!).
More importantly, The Brat Pack provided a valuable lesson in radio broadcasting on my first WMCX shift: a pack of good songs, strung together with a station break and personal anecdotes from the DJ, can forge a bond with listeners you’ve never met.
College was also where my friend Lisa and I bonded over music and our love for Andrew McCarthy. We were lucky to hear him speak and meet him at two book signings. He was a great speaker and touched on the Brat Pack without lingering on the subject. After watching the documentary, I can see why. He was processing his own feelings about the mid 80’s and his impact on a generation.
“Pretty in Pink” has aged well, and so have we!
Top 10 All-Time Yacht Rock Songs Ranked
July is here and it’s prime season for Yacht Rock Songs. Time to sit back on your yacht, or ummm dingy, and listen to the smooth sounds from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, with temp hopefully right there as well. The seagulls cry the white caps slap against the fiberglass hull, and you hold your glass of buttery chard oh so gently while inspecting those bikinis. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s yachtta do it!
Yeah, But What The Hell Is Yacht Rock?
According to AllMusic, Yacht Rock is a broad music style and aesthetic commonly associated with Soft Rock, one of the most commercially successful genres from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. Drawing on sources such as Smooth Soul, Smooth Jazz, R&B, and Disco. Meanwhile, common stylistic traits include high-quality production, clean vocals, and a focus on light, catchy melodies.[6] The term yacht rock was coined in 2005 by the makers of the online video series Yacht Rock, who connected the music with the popular SoCal leisure activity of boating. It was considered a pejorative term by some music critics.
Furthermore, In 2014, AllMusic‘s Matt Colier identified the “key defining rules of the genre:”
- Keep it smooth, even when it grooves, with more emphasis on the melody than on the beat
- Keep the emotions light, even when the sentiment turns sad (as is so often the case in the world of the sensitive yacht rocksman)
- “Always keep it catchy, no matter how modest or deeply buried in the tracklist the tune happens to be“
So Who Is The Yachtiest Of The Yacht Rockers?
This is 100 percent my own opinion. Top Ten does not leave a lot of room for error. I consider myself a pretty solid Yacht Rocker, and quite the musicologist. However, in the rare case you feel I make a mistake and leave off one of your Yacht Rock favs, have my people call your people and we’ll get together off the coast of Island Beach State Park for some Sangria and Cheese, and a little Yacht Rock, of course!
By The By, Lovey, if you’re looking for the perfect Yacht Rock swag to rock this summer, check this article out!
Plus if you need a place to dry dock and yacht rock, here’s a spot that Yachts every Sunday all summer long!
