I loved XM for the most part. At around $13 a month, there was not a whole lot to complain about. When the merger was announced, I'm sure most of the subscribers would have thought it was a good thing - to combine two mediocre companies and use the best of both of them to make one great service. Well, that's not at all what happened.
First off, non-subscribers might not know that it was a merger in the way that Saddam Hussein tried to "merge" with Kuwait in about 1991. Very, very few of the XM music channels survived the cut while they phased out duplicate channels. Most of what they took from XM was the great Opie and Anthony show, and all the sports channels.
Among those gutted channels was one of my favorites called "The Boneyard." This channel featured hard-rocking, arena bands from the 80s such as Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Aldo Nova, Helloween, etc. During the merger, some corporate suit who probably has never even heard of Y&T decided that the Sirius equivalent "Hair Nation" was the one to keep.
Right from the start I am pissed because of the name. The label "hair band" is thrown around way too loosely to describe bands from that era. It is generally a derogatory term meant to downplay their music. I don't subscribe to the idea that there are guilty pleasures in music. Either you enjoy the music and it makes you happy or you don't. What else could there be?
The main component of this channel's new found awfulness is that, unlike The Boneyard, the Hair Nation has DJs... ALL DAY LONG! They break in about every three songs with valuable quips about what's going on in their lives or awful jokes that would make local FM DJs cringe.
If they had DJs that maybe told you a little trivia about the bands, or stuff you didn't know about the genre you're listening to, fine. But that's not the case here. They tell you what song and artist you heard, which is utterly useless on XM since your receiver tells you that exact info at all times. They also find it necessary to tell you what's on other channels, or what they will be watching on TV tonight. And if you're lucky, you can strap on your laughing-hat and hear jokes to the effect of "Bruce Dickinson puts the 'dick' in 'Dickinson.'" Oh, I hope you didn't swerve into the median because of intense laughter! Not even Fargo's own Scotch & DUI would find that funny (and yes, I use the traditional spelling of that jerkoff's name.)
The point is, if Sirius insists on putting hacky DJs on every music channel, what makes if different than FM and thus, why pay for it? The best part of the music channels used to be that you would hear uninterrupted music that you don't normally hear a lot of on the regular airwaves. With this Hair Nation nonsense the playlist is much less deep (I heard 3 Guns N Roses songs within a 1 1/2 hour stretch, no exaggeration) and the vibe is ruined by the inane babble of its talentless DJs.
To give you an idea of how well run this company is, check out their channel description taken from the online player. This new company really has a handle on things!
I love "Alrenative Hits!" If this trend continues against the channels I've been willing to pay for, I will be "Siriusly" considering buying a Slacker mobile player (Ooh! an easy, corny pun on the way out.)
