A magnetic recording medium for communication with a transducer moving relative to the recording medium along a line of relative transducer motion. The magnetic recording medium has a substrate with a substrate surface, and a seed layer on the substrate surface. The magnetic recording medium also has a soft magnetic underlayer on the seed layer. The soft magnetic underlayer includes a magnetic material having a magnetic moment larger than 1.7 teslas. The soft magnetic underlayer has a texture that provides a magnetic easy axis that has an easy axis alignment parallel to the line of relative transducer motion. A magnetic storage layer is on the soft magnetic underlayer.