Satellite Radio

With the purchase of my new car came the added bonus of an XM radio with a three month subscription.

Since I’ve never really been too keen on owning an iPod (which I do) and amassing a huge personal collection of digitized music (which I haven’t) XM has been a great boon to my music listening. Hours upon hours of commercial free music have successfully lured me back from my recent addiction to talk radio and introduced me to many new favorites as well as rekindling my interest in some old friends.

Just the other day I was introduced to The Move which is a band I probably *should* have been aware of 30 years ago.

As I was listening to a version of “Do Ya” which I have always associated with Electric Light Orchestra I was struck by the fact that not only was the song one I knew, but the musical and vocal styling were hauntingly familiar. It was like listening to ELO without the string section and the polish and production values that made them a huge success in the 70’s and early 80’s.

Of course this made perfect sense once I verified (via the WWW) that The Move was fronted by none other than Roy Wood. After a little research I learned that Jeff Lynn joined up with Roy Wood toward the end of the band’s career and it’s obvious to me it was he who transitioned The Move into the better known, more widely acclaimed ELO.

And last week I was was listening to the live version of 21st Century Schizoid Man performed by Greg Lake (not with King Crimson) that must have gone on for over 10 minutes.

XM is rekindling a sense of wonder and joy in my music listening that I thought had gone the way of the Dodo and 70’s style album rock (a la late night KLOL). I wasn’t sure if I was going to go ahead and subscribe when the free trial was over but after 3 months I was hooked. When the sales monkey from XM called to let me know my free trial was expiring I signed up for a full year.