When my husband and I took our honeymoon to Hawaii, I was extremely excited for various reasons. The main reason was the fact that I had never been to Hawaii and had always wanted to go, and could now go with my husband. Another, lesser reason was to hear the cool Hawaiian music playing at a luau or other cool event. Yet, once we got to Hawaii I found out that the ukulele is an instrument of evil. In Hawaii the ukulele is used ad-naseum to the point of complete brain melting exhaustion. If you haven’t been to Hawaii, let me spread some knowledge; ukulele players play every song imaginable on the instrument. They then also play their own original music which pretty much all sounds the same. Yet the ukulele has made its presence known today in much more popular and trendy ways. For example, songs like Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours and Train’s Hey Soul Sister are top 100 mainstream success stories, much like I assume the Plain White T’s Rhythm of Love will be. You may ask yourself why I am discussing the ukulele at this point. Well, to answer your question, this week the “ukulele virtuoso” Jake Shimabukuro released his latest full length album Peace Love Ukulele devoted to the art of stretching the ukulele’s limits. My personal favorite is his remake of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody played completely on ukulele and with no lyrics or vocals. As a whole, the album is intriguing but lacks a connective thread from song to song (aside from the ukulele of course). If you are interested in more Jake Shimabukuro songs check out his rendition of Thriller. And if you like a unique ukulele sound, you should definitely give this album a try, but if you are like me then stick with the trendy hipster uses of the ukulele and that’s all.
How do you feel about the ukulele?
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