And while I had reservations, XM Fred playing Guadacanal Diary ended those reservations quite quickly.
If I lived in Chicago I wouldn’t have felt the need so much with WXRT being available and WXRT being on the internet probably stopped me from getting XM sooner. Even with the weird Pretenders obsession of certain XRT Deejays.
The commercial Eric points out actually made me feel better about my purchase–it reminded me that being a kid in central Illinois meant my primary contact with the music world was WXRT through my cable system in the late 1980s and that would have been worth paying for over the crap available locally. At the time I had public radio that primarily played classical and some jazz, a top 35 station in Bloomington-Normal and a 105.7 classic rock out of Peoria. During the school year, 88.1 WESN at Illinois Wesleyan (which I also appeared on in 1988-89) was fun, but erratic. XRT was it in terms of shaping my musical tastes.
While I love the local community radio station KDHX in St. Louis (and I appear on it every few weeks on Collateral Damage), the station has odd choices of music when I most want to listen, and there are about two local talk show hosts I can listen to.
I was terribly excited by XRT’s on-line streaming and still am, but even I’m only at my computer a portion of the day.
I’ve had XM in my car for nearly two years now, and I’m pleased, even though I rarely listen to the dizzying array of musical choices available there.
One of the biggest reasons is precisely because it is so dizzying. So many channels, and it’s very difficult to know what feature programs happen to be on, unless you want to spend a lot of time on their site and then trying to happen to be in the car at the time a show is on.
But the selection is great and the variety of choices is simply amazing.
All that said, I find that I use it for one thing and one thing only 90 % of the time, and that’s listening to Air America.
This was great for the first year or so, but now AA is carried locally on an AM station and I suppose that renders my need for XM moot, but I still prefer the sound and the ability to drive from coast to coast with no interuption in signal (unless you are near a cliff or building immediately to the south)
I also enjoy the feeds from CNN, MSNBC, and C-Span.
I’m sure I’m not utilizing it anywhere near it’s potential, but I still think it’s a great service.
Just got it myself. Love it. I love the classical selections, Fred, and Hear Music. I cracked up when I heard the Air America commercial, though. I’m sure you are the only one listening…heh!.
Wrong provider! Shoulda bought Sirius. From Stern, to Adam Curry’s podshow to the NFL, Sirius has the brighter future. They have the same ‘commercial free’ music, but they offer so much more with their chatters.
There’s probably still time to take it back and get a sirius!
Parents have Sirius — sorry parent. Mom switched to XM. Sorry Jake…Besides, MLB is my thing…
I hate Stern and Baseball is my thing too, so XM was a natural choice. I’ve also been happy with the X Country station as well as Fred and XMU amongst others. Big 10 Sports too.