Enjoy and be edified.
Preset A
1. XM40 Audio Visions...New age and ambient music are the best kinds for reading and/or relaxing. It's also very helpful in the fight against insomnia. Sometimes I turn this channel on and just let it play all day long, using it as aural wallpaper. Every evening they play "Music from the Hearts of Space". Gotta love the space music.
2. XM70 Real Jazz...Most of the time XM70 plays the good small combo improvisational acoustic jazz. I've been a fan of that type of jazz since my high school days. I'm not real crazy about "The French Quarter", a show that airs on Sunday nights featuring the really, really old dixieland stuff. Nor do I care for the Latin jazz/salsa feature they've been playing ever since the channel that once featured it exclusively went under. Otherwise, Real Jazz is great.
3. XM72 Beyond Jazz...I wouldn't mind if this channel played a little more old school fusion (Fridays they do play a lot of it), but the modern jazz that is their typical fare is enjoyable. My main complaint is that there is entirely too much talk from the DJs. And I can't stand how they've decided to call it MoJa (get it? MOdern JAzz...). That's stupid as fuck.
4. XM40 Deep Tracks...Now here's a channel that should be a lot better than it is. I like the idea of hearing "deep album tracks", songs that haven't been played to death on the radio by artists and bands who have established themselves in the genre. Problem is that they play too many "deep artists", ie. artists whose output has garnered them a small cult following at best. Still, quite often it lives up to my expectations, and there's always the Grateful Dead hour (DT is also the home channel of Bob Dylan's "Theme Time Radio" program, and though I love Dylan, I hate his show).
5. XM42 Liquid Metal...I know, I know...I'm too old to be listening to this extreme metal, death metal, et. al. And yet I find myself irresistably drawn to the machine gun bass drums, the shredding guitars, the pounding bass and the demons-with-indigestion vocals. Best time to listen is weekday evenings when Coolguy is the DJ. Coolguy is the MAN.
6. XM44 Fred...Fred could be a lot better than what it is, as far as my tastes go. They tend to play WAY too much Midnight Oil and Echo & the Bunnymen (and they play The Alarm as if that band had once been "the next big thing"). Every once in a while you'll catch 'em spinning a stream of great stuff, and it's the only place you're ever likely to hear Joy Division on the air.
7. XM47 Top Tracks...I live in a state where the classic rock radio station is predictable and has one of the tightest playlists I've ever heard. Same old shit, day in, day out. It's almost as if they feel obligated to play the Steve Miller Band once an hour because for some reason that Space Cowboy is more popular here than in other markets. What I'm trying to say is that it gets very old hearing the same songs everyday. Top Tracks is what a classic rock channel SHOULD sound like. Familiar but with variety.
8. XM43 XMU...Okay, so I'm rarely in the mood for XMU's brand of indie rock (I like the Verge's take much more), but there have been times when they've played some interesting stuff. Besides, I wanted all of the 4-9 buttons on Preset A to be rock (the other rock channels don't quite cut it, even though there's nothing really wrong with them).
9. XM 52 The Verge...I think I like The Verge better than XMU because the focus is primarily on bands, whereas the latter often veers into what I think of as indie hip-hop, which is fairly popular in those circles, I would imagine, it just isn't my cup o' tea. The Verge plays a lot of the bands that I've heard of or read about but have not actually heard. I like that. Plus, the music is always very good (well, okay, not ALWAYS...but at least 89% of the time).
10. XM150 XM Comedy...Only recently have I begun listening to this channel, which is almost exclusively stand-up comedians doing their routines completely uncensored. For a long time I just didn't care for stand-up, but I've gravitated back to it. Lots of junk that reminds me of why I stopped listening to it all those years ago, but then I'll hear something really funny and I hang around in hopes that there will be more. Besides, I love the sound of people laughing. My own laughter is a precious and rare commodity, so anything I can do to solicit some...
PRESET B
1. XM110 XM Classics...An excellent classical channel. We have a great classical channel here in Oklahoma (KCSC-FM) which I would go so far as to say is every bit as good as XM Classics when it comes to the playlists. But XM Classics has the edge due to the crystal clear fidelity and the absence of filler like "Earth and Sky", "Engines of our Ingenuity" and the worst, "Poem for the Day" (I don't mind reading poetry but I don't like having it read to me).
2. XM113 XM Pops...I don't know why it's called "pops", which always makes me think of Arthur Fiedler. This is basically a classical channel that plays the more familiar pieces. It's not "classical lite" by any means but the hardcore classical snobs are likely listening to XM Classics.
3. XM 112 Vox...Can't say I listen to vocal classical music all that often, but now and then I get the urge. Sometimes I'll get lucky and they'll be playing Gregorian chants or instrumental choral music instead of the countless operas which are the usual fare. Even so, I don't mind opera sometimes. Their station ID tags, though, really get on my nerves. "XM113, Vox", the announcer says, "Classical music has finally found it's voice"...What? FINALLY? Most of this music was written almost 200 years ago and it's FINALLY found it's voice? Oh...now I get it. "Voice" as in "outlet". It still sounds dumb, and it's not as if it's the only place in the world where you can hear opera.
4. XM13 Willie's Place...I think this channel was a lot better when it was called Hank's Place. It just seemed like it played more of the really old country & western than it does now. I don't like to hear new songs on this channel, which they only play because they might sound like the old stuff (but you can always tell the difference by the improved fidelity of the recent material). I like George Strait, but his reign began in the late 70's, so he shouldn't be on here, IMO. Hell, just this afternoon they were playing John Anderson, who is another of my favorite country singers...he just doesn't belong on this channel.
5. XM10 America...Good old country, mainly from the 70's, with the legends and the corny stuff as well (the legends represented by Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Conway Twitty, etc., and the corny including C.W. McCall, Moe Bandy and the like). Haven't listened to it near as much as I used to. For some reason I've been in the mood for New Country lately (which plays on XM16, Highway 16)
6. XM17 US Country...Not quite New Country, but almost. The main fare on this channel is 90's country, veering now and again to the 80's and the early 00's. Yeah, I probably hated this stuff when it was still fresh, but nowadays I find that I quite appreciate it. Love how the songs play with words and the musicianship is astoundingly top notch, even if they are Nashville session players.
7. XM6 60's on 6...A lot of songs I've heard countless times before but then, surprisingly, much that I've never heard, or have not heard in a long, long time. I'll always support this channel after hearing the Dave Clark Five's "Try Too Hard" on it in the middle of a sleepless night remeniscing. The DC5 album that song came from was the first rock and roll album I ever owned. It's been out of print for ages and I honestly thought I'd never hear it again.
8. XM7 70's on 7...The good, the bad and the cheezy. That's 70's music for you. I may not have enjoyed everything this channel plays but, having grown up in that decade, I damn sure recognize most of it. Like the 60's channel, they often surprise me by playing something I thought I'd never hear again (like the original 45rpm single version of Bloodrock's "D.O.A.", which cuts about 4 minutes off of the original, making it a bit less tedious). Kasey Kasem's "American Top 40" airs on the weekends, re-broadcasts of complete shows from the 70's and that's a lot of fun, especially when he's down at the bottom of the countdown and there are all these songs that never made it much further up the charts. Those are the songs I just might not remember, but more often than not I vaguely do, but had rightfully forgotten them.
9. XM8 80's on 8...I admit, I only programmed this one in my presets because it completes the 60's-70's-80's trilogy. Fact is I don't like much of anything they play here. The 80's music I would enjoy is on XM44 Fred. But it does have it's redeeming qualities, namely the 80's version of Kasey Kasem's "American Top 40". Same concept...full shows from the 80's, complete with long distance dedications and all the other things that made the countdown so enjoyable. The best thing about it, though, may be that it is completely commercial free (as it is on the 70's edition, as well). "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!"
10. XM124 ABC News and Talk...Weeknights, 8-10PM. MARK LEVIN. That's all you need to know.
