When I got my Elantra in 2008 it came with a pre-installed XM radio. I figured I’d give it a shot and see how I liked having satellite radio. Hubby had an account before, but I didn’t know much about it myself. OMG… found a couple stations I kinda liked and I was hooked instantly! Being the deal shopper I am, I knew how to keep my subscription for a mere $5 a month. Small price to pay to never listen to conventional radio again!
I got quite addicted to First Wave most of all. Oh, to think back just a few years and all the artists I’d never heard before… this station opened up a whole new world of music I was not at all familiar with. I made my way through several channels, hearing many songs that had me wondering how I’d made it this far in life never hearing them before.
I liked First Wave so much that I set up a Pandora station that mirrored First Wave quite well – with a mix of even more similar music that I’d never heard before. Perfect!
Fast forward to 2014 and my new car didn’t come with satellite radio. Uh oh. I considered installing an aftermarket satellite receiver… but then I started paying attention to my listening habits.
Was I seriously paying money to just flip through stations?!? When did that happen? My satellite radio installation was quickly put on hold.
Well… since the new car came with usb capabilities and I have at least a dozen spare usb drives kicking around, why not load one up with music? I chose this funky little snake pattern one and filled it up with music. (I have since added two more with podcasts – colored yellow and green with Sharpies.) Can’t I just flip through songs for FREE rather than paying to do so? 🙂
Going through our music collection, I realized that we had a TON of music I’ve never even heard before. I was picking up albums from artists I like, but when exactly would I listen to them? Certainly not in the car on my travels.
A couple summers ago Pepsi was giving away free Amazon music downloads through twitter. This is one of those scenarios where multiple twitter accounts really came in handy! We didn’t win codes every week, but by the end of the promotion we had racked up quite a collection of free music downloads. I remember sitting there the last night of the promotion, each of us with our laptops, just downloading anything interesting we could find that we might want to listen to. We sure added to our music collection that night!
Over the years there have been other free music downloads available through various channels. Yes, we have amassed quite a collection of songs that are new to me!
Once I figured out how to put the usb drive on “all random”, I was hooked. Over the past week I have noticed I’m skipping songs less and less. I’m LISTENING more closely and really enjoying the songs. Like I used to listen to music… years ago.
Goodbye XM! I am LOVING listening to music again!!