Recently, for reasons well beyond our own control, we were in a position of listening to SiriusXM’s Hits 1, which—for anyone who doesn’t already know—is the company’s free station that doesn’t require a subscription.
Great, right?
So not great. First, the station’s peppered with repetitive ads to subscribe to SiriusXM, for obvious and excusable reasons. What’s less excusable is the severely repetitive playing of roughly twenty-some top 40 songs supposedly representing the most popular tracks on Sirius which, when tuning in for long periods of time, as we did, results in hearing some of these songs 5, 6, 7 times in less than a couple of hours. And trust me when I tell you, in my most curmudgeon-y old man voice, most of these songs are terrible. Some, like the new Panic! At the Disco (yes, there’s new Panic! At the Disco) and “Jet Black Heart” by hey-look-we’re-eom boy band 5 Seconds of Summer sound as if they were written specifically with listeners’ emotional harm first and foremost in-mind. I experienced something akin to nausea of the soul and I hope to never experience such a feeling again.
One song that I had to admit a guilty pleasure for, though, was “Roses” by NYC electronic duo The Chainsmokers and featuring Rozes (AKA Philly’s Elizabeth Mencel). Judging on a totally superficial basis, their press photos and bio lead me to believe that they’re either extremely adept at humorously playing the part of total douches for the sake of creating engaging and entertaining public personas…or they’re total douches. Or a little from column A, a little from column B. Regardless, these bros can write a fucking tune.
We refer you to exhibit A, below. But, really, everything we’ve heard is pretty nice. These guys play Coachella in the coming weeks. Obviously, right?
