December 27, 2003

XM Rocks

I got XM Radio this week for my cars and have thoroughly enjoyed the service. It made me wonder why I hardly ever listen to music on the radio anymore, even though I am a devoted iTunes Music Store customer and have 20GB of digital music on my MP3 player.

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Well, Stephen Holden, music critic for the New York Times, answers that in his article Critic's Notebook: High-Tech Quirkiness Restores Radio's Magic. Music beamed by satellite has resurrected "the thrill of musical discovery," he says, that has all but vanished on regular FM (terrestrial) radio.

From the rock 'n' roll heyday of Alan Freed to the free-form FM rock of the Woodstock era, pop radio has gone through many ups and downs before being creatively smothered by corporate homogenization. At the very moment when terrestrial pop radio has deteriorated into a wasteland in which the role of DJ is increasingly relegated to announcing songs selected by market research, satellite radio augurs what may be a new golden era of music radio.

Yes, XM rocks. But this helps explain why. Even the old stuff is new on XM. It's fun to listen without endless commercials and overly-loud DJ voice-overs, as well. At bottom, though, it offers a sense of variety and newness that one just cannot get on commercial FM radio these days. Blame Clear Channel or whatever, but that's a sad fact.

 Posted by glenn

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