Anuhea

[mel]

Re: Anuhea

Anuhea played a free 45-minute set at Ala Moana Centerstage today. Here are some photos.







above: Twittering before the show started. More photos at this link.

[mel]

Re: Anuhea

It's a nice pop album, I'll say that much - but no one should expect it to be a "Hawaiian" album. Didn't do anything for me, though, nothing exceptional about it.

Is it wrong for people from Hawaii to make pop, rock, country or alternative albums... something out of the tired old mold of overpriced "Hawaiian" and "Jawaiian" albums, and still be called "local" or "Hawaiian"? Sometimes I think music artists from Hawaii who do music outside of the Hawaiian/Jawaiian music genre need more recognition from the industry and the public.

Certainly there is a place of Hawaiian and Jawaiian music, but I have to give Anuhea kudos for breaking out of this mold with this her first album and making something more mainstream with English lyrics even though iTunes lumps it (like many other Hawaii based releases) into that catch all category of "world music".

Locally she is being sold as a "local" "Hawaiian" artist. Her CD is in the Hawaiian music rack at WalMart (where I found it) and other stores. It should really be in the pop music racks along with the other mainstream artists.

The album has grown on me in recent weeks and she can belt out the songs live with aplomb as she did during yesterday's set at Centerstage (see photos above). She's a very nice young lady who admitted to onstage to be hooked into the whole social network thing doing Twitter and Facebook. Cool.

I hope her album is promoted more beyond the shores of Hawaii and perhaps make a dent on the mainstream charts and radio.

By the way she did a couple of good covers of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" originally done by Frankie Valli in the 1960s and Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" during yesterday's performance.

For now it seems Anuhea is all about pop music. Nothing wrong with that.

[Pomai]

Re: Anuhea

Anuhea was my coworker's classmate at Kamehameha (the Palama campus).

Interestingly, she noted that she doesn't remember Anuhea being musical in school.

Unlike Daniel Ho, who was my classmate at St. Louis, who was always musical, being in band throughout the years there.

Anuhea's performed at The Shack Waikiki a number of times, although I missed it.

Speaking of female artists, I recently discovered this AMAZING singer/guitarist/songwriter named KIANA performing on Kalakaua avenue last weekend...


Kiana

She's half Japanese (speaks Nihongo fluently) and half Irish/German. I'd say her style is an eclectic mix between Sarah McLachlan, Ann Wilson of Heart and Bjork. Truly the voice of an angel. Plus she's an excellent rhythm guitarist!

Click on Kiana's Myspace page here and listen to the tracks 'Flicker' and 'Inner Star' (crank up the volume). Absolutely BEAUTIFUL!