I walked the dog through rock

[ClubSteeler]

I spent 4 hours last night surfing, not listening to whole songs, but listening to a little, and surfing around. I think the XMers are well represented in this merger and have completely overreacted.

90s on 9: I like it and glad we got it. We also still have Pulse. This is great. 90s plays some better music, but also plays some worse music, if that makes sense. Pulse sort of has a format to it, where 90s plays anything from that decade. For example, I stopped on channel 9 to listen to "She Talks To Angels" by Black Crowes. I always liked that song. The next song was from the boy-band N'Synch... So you get the idea.

Pulse: Glad we still have it, see above.

Classic Vinyl: I think they merged both Sirius/XM playlists here, but I don't notice enough difference to claim whether it is better now or not. It's a push.

Classic Rewind: See above comment. By the way, this could be Top Tracks (or is it Big Tracks, I can't remember) playlist because the station ID said: "Top Tracks is now called Classic Rewind."

Deep Tracks: This is totally 100% XM. XM format, XM DJs, and way better than The Vault.

Jam On: Great channel if you are into this music, seems same as Sirius. Good decision to keep it.

Octane: I was digging Octane last night. It definitely has Squizz influence. I can't tell if it's 100% squizz or a mixture. I can tell you this, when I started listening, there was an Octane DJ, when I finished, there was a Squizz DJ. Squizz is not gone folks.

Alt Nation: Spent little time on this channel.

1st Wave: This is the ONE mistake of the merger in rock. This station sucks. I don't know much about Fred, but it had to be better than this.

Hair Nation: Exact same as sirius, same DJs. Really glad they kept it because nothing on XM was very similar.

Lithium: This channel had the most crying yesterday, and I have to disagree with all of the whiners. Lithium has been my #1 preset since I first subscribed. That said, the first 5 songs I heard last night, 3 of them I never heard on Lithium before, and one I never heard.... EVER. So they might have fired the "genius" behind Lucy, but the playlist is well represented on Lithium. There were spans where the channel was the typical good ole Lithium, and at times it was certainly different. I think this is a Lithium/Lucy hybrid channel.

Underground Garage: Seems to be the same.

Sirius XMU: Once again, all the bitching and moaning about losing XMU, yet they had XMU DJs and XMU playlists. Earlier they had Left Of Center DJs. Once again, XMU is not dead. This is a hybrid channel. There are 4 DJs, 2 LOC, and 2 XMU. Relax.

Liquid Metal: They kept XMs format, and I personally like it better than Hard Attack, although it's very similar.

Faction: Same as before.

The Blend: Cool channel. Same as on XM.

Coffee House: Same as before.



In summary: Every single merged channel has either taken on XM's playlist, or else merged to the 2 channels depending on who is the DJ. With the exception of 1st Wave, the only bad move in this merger for rock.

The channels that were unique to XM, stayed the same: 90s, Blend...

The channels unique to Sirius stayed the same: Jam On, Hair Nation

And the replacment of Sirius' Vault and Hard attack by XM's channels was a move for the better.

I'm really surprised by any complaints from rock fans, with the exception of 1st Wave... That's just a poor station... The merger was apparently actually pretty well thought out. Imagine that!! Maybe you Fred people can influence a change there. Maybe you punk fans can too. You can't please everyone, but this was a pretty good attempt.

 

[jr461]

It seems though that we (Sirius) have adopted Top and Big tracks playlists but added Sirius DJs. I say this since on Vinyl, the Pink Floyd grouping of Us and Them/Any Colour You want/Brain Damage/Eclipse was played in its entirety yesterday. Having switched a couple of years ago from XM, one thing that stuck out was that Sirius on Classic Vinyl ALWAYS broke this up into 2 "songs". They also played Telephone Line last night, which Sirius typically had on Rewind. And Sirius had a somewhat earlier cut off in terms of where vinyl ended and rewind picked up, compared to XMs split.

These are tip offs that the playlists are XMs. Not that this is a bad thing but just sayin'. I always thought when I had XM that they needed DJs.

The decades are all clearly XM. And it's good to have the Pulse and Hits 1, which is infinitely better than 20 on 20.

The Loft is unchanged from XM.

I am noticing though how much cross promotion the DJs are doing. This was an XM thing where their DJs might mention the music for a few seconds and then go off on what was on other channels. Seems this has taken over now, not a good change. Sirius Djs would usually concentrate on the music, artists, or related fodder.

The other thing that annoyed me on XM channels were the amount of "shows" (Wolfman Jack, Jazz artist shows, etc), however, there are so many channels that it's easy enough to go elsewhere when these come on.

And yes, there is an awful lot of whining on the XM boards. They have no tolerance for anything different and assume since Sirius is in charge (arguable since the head of programming is from XM) it is bad.

I like the changes overall and always thought/hoped, from the time I heard they were merging, that something like this would result.

 

[bwaldron]

I like the changes overall and always thought/hoped, from the time I heard they were merging, that something like this would result.

Same here. I was very concerned about what what would happen to the music channels post-merger. While I can't say I am 100% pleased, so far I have to say that they've done a pretty darned good job in blending.

 

[udfan07]

I am also pleased. I do agree that maybe I am used to Sirius DJs where they just concentrated on the music. That's the only complaint I have right now and of course I have been noticing the sound quality is a bit bad but hopefully they will fix that at some point. I just heard Jimi Hendrix on 60's on 6, I know that they would never have played that on 60's Vibrations. So the music selection is great.

 

[gilpdawg]

Liquid Metal: They kept XMs format, and I personally like it better than Hard Attack, although it's very similar.

Seriously? The "new" Liquid Metal IS Hard Attack. Check the logs back several days worth on Dogstar Radio. There's no difference. It's Hard Attack. Since I prefer Hard Attack, I'm happy. You saying that means you've never actually listened to the "old" Liquid Metal. It's very different.

 

[Grüpsaar]

I agree. The changes are great, but Liquid metal is still hard attack. Even the Text on screen re-assures hard attack listeners its the same station.

"Liquid Metal....24/7 HARD ATTACK!"

And Jose and other Sirius DJ's saying things aren't much differen't, don't panic. Also have seen things like "HRDATCK...Still here!"

 

[jnj86]

I agree. The changes are great, but Liquid metal is still hard attack. Even the Text on screen re-assures hard attack listeners its the same station.

"Liquid Metal....24/7 HARD ATTACK!"

And Jose and other Sirius DJ's saying things aren't much differen't, don't panic. Also have seen things like "HRDATCK...Still here!"

Yeah, I'm feeling a lot better regarding good ole channel 27. Glad to hear the Hard Attack DJ's still on the air. Other than the name change, it still feels like Hard Attack. Beyond The Pit is still on every night as well, so that's cool. We'll see if Bloody Roots aires tonight. No more bitching from me. :right:

 

[styckx]

Lithium: This channel had the most crying yesterday, and I have to disagree with all of the whiners. Lithium has been my #1 preset since I first subscribed. That said, the first 5 songs I heard last night, 3 of them I never heard on Lithium before, and one I never heard.... EVER. So they might have fired the "genius" behind Lucy, but the playlist is well represented on Lithium. There were spans where the channel was the typical good ole Lithium, and at times it was certainly different. I think this is a Lithium/Lucy hybrid channel.

I was one of those. The biggest gripe from Lucy lovers is they took a channel from us that spanned nearly 30 years (80s-present) of alternative music and reduced it to a channel that covers "10" but it's really about 6-7. That's a HUGE difference in programming. Also Lithium has ZERO, ZERO DJs or shows and plays nothing but the songs that topped the charts. Where is my rarities, B-sides and deeper tracks? They don't exist at all. It's nothing but JackFM for Alt Rock from the 90s and it's really bad.

 

[Grüpsaar]

Yeah, I'm feeling a lot better regarding good ole channel 27. Glad to hear the Hard Attack DJ's still on the air. Other than the name change, it still feels like Hard Attack. Beyond The Pit is still on every night as well, so that's cool. We'll see if Bloody Roots aires tonight. No more bitching from me. :right:

IIRC,Bloody roots was listed on the programming page on sirius website for Hard attack..erm..Liquid Metal.

 

[gilpdawg]

IIRC,Bloody roots was listed on the programming page on sirius website for Hard attack..erm..Liquid Metal.

Yeah, but it's not on. We gotta have our Bloody Roots. I'm going to e-mail somebody.

 

[jnj86]

Yeah, we want our Bloody Roots. I'm emailing Jose right now.

KNOW YOUR ROOTS!

 

[jr461]

It seems though that we (Sirius) have adopted Top and Big tracks playlists but added Sirius DJs. I say this since on Vinyl, the Pink Floyd grouping of Us and Them/Any Colour You want/Brain Damage/Eclipse was played in its entirety yesterday. Having switched a couple of years ago from XM, one thing that stuck out was that Sirius on Classic Vinyl ALWAYS broke this up into 2 "songs". They also played Telephone Line last night, which Sirius typically had on Rewind. And Sirius had a somewhat earlier cut off in terms of where vinyl ended and rewind picked up, compared to XMs split.

These are tip offs that the playlists are XMs. Not that this is a bad thing but just sayin'.

This cements the fact that Vinyl (and presumably Rewind) are using XMs playlists (or at least combined, which would be best case) - last night flipping thru on DirecTv, Vinyl had some REO Speedwagon song on. This was NEVER, EVER played on there, with the possible exception of Dusty Street's shift from 10-1 when she was live at the RR HOF and took liberties from the regular playlist.

In any event, it's good to hear some fresh stuff on these channels.

 

[gilpdawg]

Yeah, we want our Bloody Roots. I'm emailing Jose right now.

KNOW YOUR ROOTS!

Ian said the show didn't air because they hadn't had a chance to change the bumper at the beginning of the show to say "Liquid Metal" instead of "Hard Attack." Which is lame. He said back to normal for the next week's schedule of shows.

 

[jnj86]

YES! I just noticed there is a new listing for Bloody Roots on the Liquid Metal site and it's going to be about one of my very fav metal genres.