The New York Times

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK High-Tech Quirkiness Restores Radio's Magic By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Published: December 26, 2003

IT'S 3 a.m. on a bitter, blustery New York night, and from a bedside radio 
on which the volume is adjusted to a comforting murmur, the voice of an 
unfamiliar singer calls through my half-sleep, and I have the sensation of 
being transported to a land of sonic dreams I haven't visited in decades. 
Not since I was a teenager enthralled by the cries and moans of the Five 
Satins and the Moonglows on early rock 'n' roll radio — sounds that Paul 
Simon once described as "deep forbidden music" — has the mystique of pop 
radio been so seductive.

The source of these sounds is not a local radio station or a bland, 
faceless cable music service but a satellite pay radio channel.

Music beamed by satellite has resurrected the thrill of musical discovery 
that has all but vanished on what is called terrestrial radio.

 From the rock 'n' roll heyday of Alan Freed to the free-form FM rock of 
the Woodstock era, pop radio has gone through many ups and downs before 
being creatively smothered by corporate homogenization. At the very moment 
when terrestrial pop radio has deteriorated into a wasteland in which the 
role of D.J. is increasingly relegated to announcing songs selected by 
market research, satellite radio augurs what may be a new golden era of 
music radio.

Barely two years old, it is already offered in two competing systems, XM 
and Sirius. These services, which suggest radio's answer to Home Box Office 
and Showtime, carry the niche marketing of music to a new level of 
refinement. Satellite radio is unlikely to restore the warm feeling of 
inclusiveness that free-form FM radio evoked among baby boomers in the 
Woodstock era, when Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Ian and the Rolling 
Stones could be heard on the same station. But in its own ultramodern way, 
it resurrects the kind of intimate musical experience that has all but 
vanished except on college radio.

With its transparent, static-free reception and digitally perfect CD sound, 
it is a technological leap beyond anything that has been heard on the 
airwaves. Satellite radio has yet to reach the point where record-company 
and independent promoters are beating down its doors to influence 
programming, and representatives of both services insist they intend to 
keep it that way. Let's hope so. That purity is one reason that subscribing 
to a satellite service is the closest you can come nowadays to going to 
Radio Heaven.

But the medium's biggest selling point may be the enthusiasm that informs 
its programming. The programmers on both services are experts in their 
genres who return the missing ingredient to radio: real care for what they 
play, which market-tested music can't begin to match.

Still half asleep, I turn my face toward the orange glow of the dial, read 
the song title and the artist's name as it scrolls across a small screen, 
and rouse myself enough to jot down the vital statistics. Come morning, 
I'll hunt down the recording on Amazon and order it.

The satellite channel that has given me the most epiphanies is XM's Channel 
50, named the Loft, which is largely devoted to four decades of 
singer-songwriters, from early Bob Dylan to the present. Some recent 
discoveries have been Damien Rice's "Cannonball," Phil Roy's "Melt," Rufus 
Wainwright's "Vibrate," Jonathan Brooke's "10 Cent Wings," Cassandra 
Wilson's version of Sting's "Fragile," Matthew Ryan's "Skylight," 
Coldplay's "We Never Change," Ryan Adams's version of Oasis's "Wonderwall," 
Patty Griffin's "One Big Love" and Richard Thompson's "I Feel So Good."

These more-or-less new recordings are intermingled with the best of the 
Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, 
Fleetwood Mac and dozens of other classic folk and rock performers.

Bear in mind that the Loft is only one star in XM's constellation of 101 
channels (Sirius has 100) embracing the entire spectrum of radio, including 
music, news, sports, talk, variety, comedy and children's programming. Out 
of XM's 101 channels, 70 are music channels, half of them commercial-free. 
(Commercials are widely scattered and usually unobtrusive.) All 60 of 
Sirius's music channels are without commercials.

Sirius has 9 pop channels (including individual decade channels from the 
50's through the 80's and 1 for Christian music), 13 rock, 4 country, 5 
hip-hop, 5 R&B, 6 dance, 5 jazz and standards channels, and 1 for Broadway. 
Its 3 classical channels are divided into orchestral, chamber and vocal 
music. The chamber music channel (XM lacks the equivalent) is especially 
fine. Sirius also carries National Public Radio, without its popular 
flagship programs, "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered."

After skipping around the dial of either service, most music lovers are 
likely to settle on two or three favorites. Besides the Loft on XM, I 
listen a lot to XM Café (which is similar but has a slightly harder, 
alternative-rock edge) and Frank's Place (the Frank is Frank Sinatra), 
which is devoted to standards and is programmed by the legendary New York 
radio personality Jonathan Schwartz, incorporating his personal record 
collection. (Most of XM's programming emanates from Washington, but Frank's 
Place is one of five XM channels based in New York.) Down the XM dial from 
Frank's Place is its country cousin, Hank's Place (as in Hank Williams), 
devoted to country standards.

The Loft is the brainchild of Mike Marrone, a 47-year-old old D.J. from a 
radio and records background. What makes it great is the fervor with which 
Mr. Marrone, a self-described ex-hippie, communicates his musical vision. 
His boundless enthusiasm is matched by his fantastic taste. The music he 
programs pointedly underscores the continuing vitality of a personal, often 
confessional songwriting tradition that flourishes artistically despite its 
commercial marginalization after the 1970's.

Mr. Marrone is as cognizant of the past as he is of the present. On the 
Loft you will rediscover the best recordings by artists seldom heard 
anywhere on the radio nowadays, like Harry Nilsson, Laura Nyro, Andy Pratt, 
Todd Rundgren, Jimmie Spheeris, Garland Jeffries, Nick Drake and John 
Martyn. Others like Jackson Browne, Tom Waits, Loudon Wainwright III, Bruce 
Cockburn and Duncan Sheik are played regularly enough to qualify as what 
Mr. Marrone calls "core artists." He was also one of the first D.J.'s in 
the country to discover Norah Jones, whose debut album he played weeks 
before its release.

Both XM and Sirius are growing rapidly. In late October XM, which began 
broadcasting nationwide in November 2001, passed the one million mark in 
subscriptions. It has a projected break-even point of three million 
subscribers. Sirius, which started in August 2002, has just passed the 
200,000 mark. It expects to achieve break-even at two million subscribers. 
The listeners to both services are pretty evenly distributed around the 
United States. Because XM and Sirius have agreements with car manufacturers 
to offer the services as a feature on many new vehicles, car radio is a 
major market.

The two systems broadcast nationally 24 hours a day. A programmer in a 
studio punches a button connected to a musical storage bank that 
automatically plays the selection. Sometimes the disc jockeys are live and 
sometimes not. Although lead-ins and segues are often recorded a day or two 
in advance, it's virtually impossible to tell if an intro is live or recorded.

Although XM and Sirius have raided terrestrial radio for on-air talent, XM, 
whose programming philosophy was conceived by Lee Abrams, the man who 
helped invent the successful formats known as A.O.R. (album-oriented rock) 
and Smooth Jazz, has a somewhat more personal touch. Mr. Abrams is a 
fervent advocate of personal communication between programmers and the 
public. At Sirius, which has grown more conservative in its pop programming 
philosophy since a change in management, the mellow rock and pop channels 
more closely resemble lite soft-rock stations like WLTW (106.7) in New York.

But ultimately it's not its wondrous technology that makes satellite 
broadcasting pop radio's (and maybe even pop music's) brightest hope, but a 
phenomenon that in some ways contradicts that technology. For the music of 
the night requires guiding sensibilities. When presented by an authority, 
it is not just a sound. Driven by a passionate music vision, it becomes a 
compelling story that draws you into an imagined world where music 
harmonizes with your deepest dreams.

The Lifetime Costs Sirius and XM Radio are the service providers for 
satellite radio service. The equipment consists mainly of the radio and 
antenna, which can be placed by any window. It can be bought at an 
electronics store like Circuit City for $120 to $2,000.

The XM receiver, which resembles a television remote control, is $120 for a 
car radio and $199 for a home system, which includes a portable boombox 
into which the receiver is fitted. Sirius is about to introduce its own 
similar boombox, which will cost $100. The cost of a Sirius receiver and 
its cradle is $149.

Service plans are available for varying periods: from monthly ($9.99 to 
$12.95); to yearly ($142); to two years ($199 to $272); to one-time 
lifetime offers ($400).

The unit can be installed in minutes by the purchaser (instructions are 
available) or through the dealer. The service can be activated by calling 
the company's Web site (www.sirius.com and www.xmradio .com) or by calling 
the toll-free numbers, (888) 539-7474 for Sirius and (800) 852-9696 for XM 
radio. Both services charge a $15 activation fee and offer a discount online.


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