Wikipedia says New Wave music died in the mid 80s, even though there were still New Wave songs hitting the charts until the early 90s.

Wikipedia also says yacht rock didn't exist until 1975, even though earlier 70s bands like Steely Dan and Looking Glass already had a very "yacht rock" feel to them.

I question this term "yacht rock". I'm not sure it's really a thing. It's like the semi-facetious term "dad rock". And even if it is a thing, it certainly wasn't a thing back then.  For example, one would never see an article back then that said "yacht rock band Steely Dan has a new album coming out next month". It just didn't exist. But that's the problem with labels. Even heavy metal wasn't "heavy metal" as early as you might think it was. Throughout the 70s, the term "heavy metal" or "metal" was used to describe any band or music that happened to be playing something hard. I even saw a Rolling Stone review of a David Crosby/Graham Nash concert from 1975 where they said "Crosby, Nash and band let loose with a stream of double fisted metal music...".  That's an exact quote. Now, obviously, David Crosby and Graham Nash, or Crosby, Stills and Nash, are not "heavy metal" as we now know it. But the Rolling Stone article was attempting to point out that they were playing something that sounded harder than what they are usually known for. That original wave of heavy metal bands, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, etc, were still simply called "hard rock" back then. It really wasn't until the late 70s or even early 80s that heavy metal coalesced into it's own genre as we now know it and started being referred to as such.

For certain artists, it seems that way.

Wikipedia says New Wave music died in the mid 80s, even though there were still New Wave songs hitting the charts until the early 90s.

Wikipedia also says yacht rock didn't exist until 1975, even though earlier 70s bands like Steely Dan and Looking Glass already had a very "yacht rock" feel to them.


Yacht Rock of course is the "softest" rock, though the early '70s stuff you talk about surely were the primary influences towards the Christopher Crosses and Dan Fogelbergs.

As for New Wave, this refers to the style that was loosely based on the first wave punk bands, and is seem as post-punk with a bit less of an edge. Those "new wave" songs of the mid-late '80s everyone seems to love are really either New Romantic, synthpop, or some sort of combo between the two that's usually just labelled "80s pop/rock". Most "true new wave" songs actually came out during the Carter years, with the Reagan-era stuff usually categorized as "New Romantic", which wasn't too different from proper New Wave, but had less of a punk influence and had a lot of hits using synths, but not nearly as much as the true synthpop groups like the New Orders, OMDs, and Depeche Modes. This balance created the best mix for all those MTV-era hits, and became the stereotype of '80s pop music, along with the glam metal songs from the "hair bands".

Of course, any art form produced since the 1970s or so is going to remain the subject of debate, since there isn't a universally accepted standard yet in terms of these genre distinctions, and will continued to be refined until a common consensus is reached. At least its better than that record club Columbia House, where  in a 1983 ad was still giving all rock music the "Teen Sound" label, even though there were plenty of adults by then who enjoyed rock, especially the '50s/'60s hits!

Let us also remember in general that Wikipedia is not meant to be taken as "gospel" on anything. Remember that essentially anybody can post to Wikipedia and they may not be accurate or they may be expressing an opinion (although Wikipedia does what it can to weed out opinions). A good rule of thumb is to use it as a reference or starting point to go to more definitive sources.

Isn’t it mainly young people typing articles for Wikipedia? I’m sorry, but not all of them have their facts correct.

Isn’t it mainly young people typing articles for Wikipedia? I’m sorry, but not all of them have their facts correct.

I completely agree here. That's why sometimes there are notices on top saying that the articles "do not cite any resources."