Dance/Trance/Electronica on XM?

[emaleth72]

My husband and I are thinking about getting either XM or Sirius. We've been reading about both. Hubby is all for XM because of the Roady system and lower monthly rate. However, the kind of music I like best is the dance/trance/electronica. And SIrius has two channels I've enjoyed listening to via the stream on their site. I've listened to the three stations available for preview on XMradio.com but the one station that sounds like my favorite music doesn't have a preview listen option on the site, it's called THESystem. Does anyone who has XM on here listen to that channel? What's it like? Currently I do a lot of listening at home and work to the Trance channels on www.di.fm, that is the kind of stuff I like.

If hubby prefers XM I'm okay with that, but I"d like to know if it's going to have any dance/electronica worth listening to.

Thanks

[Steve Mehs]

Welcome to DBSTalk Emaleth. :hi:

When it comes to the Dance genre, Sirius has been usually deemed the winner. Sirius used to offer 6 channels of dance, but during the last round of channel line up changes they removed their house music stream called House Party and their electronica stream, The Vortex, which later became a dedicated trace stream was renamed Chill and the official description is now smooth electronica which upset a lot of people at the Sirius Backstage Forums. Sirius used to have a killer dance line up, but now the difference isn't so much. For the best feedback on the dance selection of the two SDARS providers check out XMFan's Dance Forum (http://www.xmfan.com/viewforum.php?f=24) and Sirius BackStage's Dance Forum. (http://www.siriusbackstage.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=22&sid=be76895492305573b8d36b0d8383ee0b) Sorry I couldn't be more help but dance isn't really my thing, I'm more of a metal head, but the general consensus is that Sirius still has an advantage when it comes to dance.

[dtcarson]

On that note, how are the metal offerings on each one [or whichever you have the most/recent experience with]? I like alternative metal or old school metal; Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Slayer, Suicidal...and going alt with Type O or Cradle of Filth. None of the Kid Rock 'power pop' stuff for me, thanks.

[Steve Mehs]

I love XMs hard rock selection. Bone Yard and Liquid Metal do a great job at covering metal. Bone Yard is a superb station for early stuff from the beginning with Sabbath to AC/CD pretty much ending in the early '90s with Metallica's self titled disc. Liquid Metal is for the underground and alt metal styles. Type O Negative and Cradle of Filth are played frequently, but not too often that it becomes an annoyance. Lamb of God, Morbid Angel, Watch Them Die, Napalm Death, Vampire Moose, Dying Fetus, Diesel Machine are just a few of the bands also featured on Liquid Metal, they also play some '80s thrash like Pantara. The main thing I don't like about Sirius in this regard is their heavy metal channel Hard Attack, plays both underground and commercial metal. I like Liquid Metal being pretty much an underground channel, they play Metallica once in a very great while, but it’s always the older stuff pre Black Album. On Sirius there is also Buzzsaw, which is their version of Bone Yard, playing ‘80s metal. Buzzsaw is a decent channel and I like it. The offerings are pretty close, but I like XMs breakdown of hard rock and metal better.

[Roger]

"they play Metallica once in a very great while, but it’s always the older stuff pre Black Album."

Nothing after JFA. They play too much of that hard crap like Napalm Death. They need a 3rd channel that cuts out the "gay" hair band stuff that's on Bone Yard and the hard stuff like Napalm Death crap that's on LM.

[Steve Mehs]

Hey Roger welcome back. I didn't know you were an XM sub. Buzzsaw on Sirius might be more of your liking, since Sirius has they're own dedicated hair band stream, Buzzsaw should filter that out. I usually listen to Liquid Metal, but during compton I switch to da Bone Yard and haven't noticed an over abundance of hair bands.

[BobMurdoch]

XM has two good dance channels The System and BPM. The System tends to focus on more Electronica while BPM tends to have more club remixes. They also have a channel called The Move but it tends to be that obscure freestyle type music that I never recognize so I tend to avoid it. They also have a channel called Chrome that sounds like they stole the playlist from Studio 54 in its heyday.

I like both and you should be happy with either one. If you have E*, check out the Sirius channels after channel 6000 to see if you like the style they offer.

[Mav63]

Back to the original question, The System, channel 82 is the best of the three techno channels. I listen to it 99% of the time my XM is on. It keeps me motivated at work! They play mostly trance, sometimes some older stuff. I have even heard Portishead on there to mix things up a bit. Great channel!

[BobMurdoch]

AudioVisions has has a lot of trance type programs as well (a lot of Starstreams shows which USED to be on the System). Mostly new age music, but a good chunk of time is spent on Ambient Techno programs.

[reddice]

Sirus dance selection now stinks. They added a new station that is mostly rap music. Sirus is really into rap music. I don't have sirius. As for electronica there is The Move and The System but even those are limited. They cram a bunch of different formats into 2 streams and they think that is good. At least now The System has a trance show but it is only 2 hours a week otherwise The System can be all over the place.