Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Opinion: Hawaiians On The Radio

Unless you live in Hawai'i or a city that has a specialty Hawaiian music radio show, why is it that the only time you hear Hawaiians on the radio is when you hear Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't Have You", anything by the Pussycat Dolls, and a sample of Yvonne Elliman in a Fatboy Slim track? Huh? We have more music than that.

I know Israel Kamakawiwo'ole gets a lot of time on NPR and of course on television and in film, but I'm talking regular radio. I look forward to when Nicole Scherzinger's album comes out, then we'll have... one or two additional songs. Pfftt.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Cool Blog! I remember you from In/Flux...way back.

Anyways, I am just getting into hawaiian music, and I didn't realize how hard it is to come across - even on the internet! I basically just listen to KINE on the internet or that one iTunes radio station. Let me know if you know any good resources for listening/buying some good music.

BTW, do you know how I can get a copy/mp3/whatever of "Mr. Sun Cho Lee"?

John Book said...

As far as buying it, there are two websites I can immediately recommend:

Mele.com
BuyHawaiianMusic.com

Try to avoid Amazon when buying Hawaiian CD's, since they like to slap on an "import" price. Perhaps they don't know that Hawai'i is still apart from the US, I don't know.

Can't help you with an MP3 of "Mr. Sun Cho Lee".