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Satellite (radio) of love

The best part of driving my parents’ cars is the built-in XM Radio. I tune straight to XM 43, the college-radio inspired X.M.U. I’ll admit, eight out of ten songs are either uninteresting or unlistenable, so I often head up to XM 44 (classic alternative) or XM 47 (new alternative), hoping to return in time for the two gems played every half-hour on X.M.U., often songs I haven’t heard by artists I’ve heard a lot about. I discovered both Of Montreal and The Features on XM 43, leading to deeper explorations of both bands.

The advantages of satellite radio are well publicized: fewer commercials, endless variety, nationwide signal coverage. But the signal compression can reduce the fidelity of a solid sound system to that of laptop speakers. The compression affects some songs more than others and, in the end, isn’t a deal breaker for me.

Then again, I don’t have a deal to break. 2008 could be the year of XM for me. If nothing else, who wouldn’t sign up for access to channel 59, also known as XM LED: all Led Zeppelin, all the time. I’m paraphrasing here, but I’m told the station’s tagline is something like, “Where the most precious metal is Led.” Yikes.