Alexa, Play Me Howard Stern

Howard Stern

Michael Loccisano / Getty Images

SiriusXM radio is now available on Amazon Alexa. The addition of the satellite radio service, long a missing piece in Alexa's streaming music offerings, means you can finally listen to the Yacht Rock station (highly recommended FYI) by hollering at a speaker in your kitchen.

It's the latest shot in the, uh, speaker wars. It comes shortly after Apple announced its own voice-controlled home speaker, the HomePod. Apple emphasized the HomePod's audio performance, suggesting that audiophiles would prefer its speaker over the Amazon Echo or Google Home.

But there's a lot more to audio than just the way it sounds, right? Adding a big radio partner like SiriusXM makes the Echo a lot more than just a weather and Tide-refill ordering machine. It's something to listen to. Amazon really hit 'em with the Hein, you might say.

SiriusXM subscribers (sorry, you have to be a paying customer still) can now say "Alexa play me Howard Stern on SiriusXM" or "Alexa play me Tom Petty Radio on SiriusXM" instead of tuning to those channels in their cars, or wherever. Convenient!

But one thing they WON'T be saying is "Alexa play me Classic College on SiriusXM," because SiriusXM got rid of THE BEST STATION EVER.

Imagine this: a station that was just indie rock from like 1987-1999.

It was basically all Pavement with an occasional Dinosaur Jr or Liz Phair break. It was great. Unfortunately, Sirius canceled the station in 2015.

What I'm saying here, is that if you're a SiriusXM subscriber with an Echo, please say "Alexa please mail a letter to Sirius Radio telling them to bring back Classic College." I'm pretty sure that's how it works?

BABA BOOEY TO YOU ALL

from BuzzFeed - Tech https://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/siriusxm-is-now-available-for-amazon-alexa?utm_term=4ldqpia