🚢Yacht Pop Anchors #5: The Kings ("This Beat/Switchin' to Glide"), Donnie Iris ("Ah! Leah!"), 1980

⚓Like Yacht Rock, but with a little more octane, more harmonies, infinitely hummable melodies, and some jangly guitars.

As it so often does, the dynamism runs deep in this duo of songs that coulda/shoulda been hits, or if they dented the charts at all, shoulda been bigger hits. Regardless, even if heard, they seem to have gotten a bit lost in the cobwebs of time, and deserve far more air time! And, that’s why we’re here! Gather for muster drill!

1. The Kings, “This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide,” 1980

The demo as recorded for a proposed indie album (below): This is what Bob Ezrin heard. He had just finished spending well over a year producing Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and had hoped to take some time off.

According to the video’s YouTube content creator: “This version contains an alternate chord progression and extra lyrics which most people have never heard before.”

From the official Kings YouTube channel (@thekingsarehere), the band itself leaves this comment: “For what it’s worth, this is the way we were recording it when we were making an indie album. We met Bob Ezrin (production credits include Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, KISS, among many others) in the studio, and he agreed to mix this, but when he did, he said there was lots wrong with it, but it had promise. He got us a deal [with Elektra Records], we rewrote the song and the rest is history.”

Their debut album, The Kings are Here, went Gold in Canada, and peaked at #74 on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart in October 1980, spending 26 weeks there. The single “Switchin’ to Glide”/”This Beat Goes On” reached #43 on Billboard's Hot 100.

The Kings were formed in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Oakville, Ontario in the late 1970s. The original lineup included David Diamond, bass and lead vocals; Mister Zero (aka John Picard, listed as Aryan Zero in the original debut Kings Are Here LP liner notes), guitar; Sonny Keyes, keyboards and vocals; and Max Styles (drums), with Zero and Diamond serving as the main songwriters with contributions from Keyes.