How does one describe yacht rock? The folks at MasterClass did a pretty good job. Essentially, it's a component of soft rock, adult contemporary, and Album-oriented rock (AOR) all rolled into one.
In the mid-1970s and ‘80s in SoCal, bands like Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers, and Toto blended jazz, R&B, and pop to create a new soft style: yacht rock.