The Zen of Car Radio Music

Sometimes there just isn’t anything quite like listening to the radio while driving down the highway – especially when the windows are closed, the a/c is on, familiar songs fill the car and you can sing along to your heart’s content. That’s what I do, anyway.

Radio music in your car greatly enhances the driving experience. If you’re on a road trip with your windows down, tearing through wide open country, you want rollicking rock and roll music so you can join in at the top of your lungs.

If you’re driving along a coastal highway with the stars glistening on the open sea, you want to listen to a station that offers something a little slower and dreamier.

Although I’ve driven in both situations, I’m usually somewhere in between. My choice is usually oldies from the ‘50s or ‘60s, because I grew up with that music and know a lot of the lyrics.

In Hawaii, my oldies station was KGMZ Oldies 107.9 for years, for so long that I can’t even tell you when I first set my car radio dial there.

But like all good things in life, things must change. The station has expanded its music to include much from the ‘80s, a period that I don’t particularly care for, despite the fact that I did listen to Top 40 pop occasionally, contemporaneously with the era.

Just recently, I discovered Hawaii's 99.5 The Jewel, which plays music from my favorite era. It’s an easy-listening station with the sounds of Tony Bennett, Andy Williams, Connie Stevens, the Four Preps, Smokey Robinson, mixed with a few easy-listening contemporary artists … well, you get the idea.

It’s soothing music that calms me down in traffic, the only time that I listen to radio music.

Sometimes when I’m heading down that freeway on the mainland, say in Las Vegas, I prefer to listen to Golden Oldies rock and roll (if I can find the right station) so I can rock out loud all by my lonesome. I say “right station” because oldies stations have come and gone. It’s so sad.

But there’s no reason for that in Honolulu. The roads are much too crowded and it just doesn’t feel right anymore. Honolulu requires calming music.

For me, that’s 99.5 The Jewel; I’ve made it my default station. Bye-bye, 107.9, it’s been nice knowin’ ya.