I finally set up the Sirius XM radio in my car, the same car that I've owned for two and a half months. Rest assured that I did have some of the stations pre-set early on, but it has been an imperfect match.
For example, why do I have 50's music pre-set? I wasn't alive in the 50's, and I'm not particularly fond of a lot of the music from that time period. I do, however, pre-set 60's and 70's music, but I dump the 80's and 90's stations today because they're really not that great, more of hit or miss with mostly misses. Instead, I replace the lost decades with music from the 40's because I like big band music (even though I wasn't alive then, either).
I'm a Sinatra fan, though Tony Bennet is my favorite out of that group, so I keep that station. I am truly amazed by the modern singers who show up on the Sinatra station singing the classic old tunes. I cannot bring myself to add the Broadway show tunes station, though. That's just not really my thing. I'll sing along with the tunes I know (Godspell? Yes!), but I don't really care for some of the newer stuff.
I changed out many of the jazz and R&B stations today, too, weaned them down to just a couple of stations, and added my kids' favorite country station to the mix. I added the classical station, too, even though my favorite, WCRB, is still hard-wired into my regular radio rotation. I like comedy, but the hardcore stuff I was encountering was getting old, so I added in a cleaner station and have yet to decide if I'll keep it or not.
I didn't add any talk stations at all, not even entertainment ones. I don't give one crap what Hollywood is doing (bring on techno-movies and eliminate paid actors altogether -- bye bye wasteful, useless, idiotic Beverly Hills), and I stopped listening to talk radio before the last presidential election because politics are the evil spawn of crazy narcissists.
What truly surprises me about my selections is that I add zero sports stations. I kind of know where the stations are, but I have zippo respect for the NFL at this point, there's no hockey right now, I don't bother with basketball anymore, and I'll watch baseball, lacrosse, and soccer on television. Plus, all of my local Boston teams are available on the regular radio, so there's no need to satellite that.
The real problem is not the radio stations nor the Sirius XM stations from which I might choose. The real problem is that I need more than the thirty or so offerings that I'm given on the car. Don't even get me started on what happens when I plug in my phone and start streaming Pandora into the car. My Pandora station list reads like the medical chart of someone with multiple personality disorder.
Anyway, the goal is to be able to listen to good music and also to sing my head off in the car as I drive. My taste in music may be diverse, but my vocal range is limited. I do believe, though, that between my phone, the standard radio stations, and Sirius XM, I should have enough entertainment to keep me and my passengers plenty busy during short, medium, or lengthy car trips. You won't be able to miss us -- we'll probably be belting out Jackson 5 tunes (or anything, really) full blast with the windows wide open.
