Sirius XM has been a wonderful addition to car radios. Because of it you don’t miss a beat while out buying dog food in town or while driving cross-country.

By John A. Schwarz

Sirius XM has been a wonderful addition to car radios. Because of it you don’t miss a beat while out buying dog food in town or while driving cross-country. Some of the music channels are fabulous; others could be terrific if the people selecting the music possessed better taste.  

In the “great” category is “Sinatra.” You not only get to listen to him, you also hear Nat “King” Cole, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Bobby Darin, and Dean Martin.  

“The 40s” is another great one. There you can listen to music by Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, and Les Brown. “The Escape” and “Love” stations are generally pretty good, although there are times while you are driving and listening to one of them that you feel like you are in an elevator or a dentist’s office.

The channels that need work are “The 50s” and “The 60s.” In addition to the male singers listed above who sang in the 1950s and the 1960s, the fantastic female singers during that period were Doris Day, Julie Andrews, Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, and Patti Page. Yet, you rarely hear any of them while listening to those channels; instead, listeners are stuck with a lot of no-name artists singing ridiculous songs that weren’t even popular in the day and that you’d never want to hear more than once.

Two examples from the ’60s are “Bus Stop” by the Hollies and “Abigail Beecher” by Freddy Cannon. Two from the ’50s are “A Little Bit of Soap” by the Jarmels and “Buzz, Buzz, Buzz” by the Flames. I’m not making this up. The takeaway from my experience is: think twice before saving “The 50s” or “The 60s” as Favorites when programing your Sirius XM.