The channels are great ideas, but the music still needs to be programmed and the music czar/inas at Spinner (their terms, but how about EJ?) know their stuff. They mix the obvious with the less so and infrequently reach for the single. One recent stretch on Alt.80s included U2's "Like a Song," Talking Heads' "Making Flippy Floppy" and "Ghost Town" from the Specials. Bands I heard on Indie Rock include everyone's darlings Yo La Tengo, cult faves Joan of Arc and Marmoset, whom I'd never heard of. My praise was sealed when the achingly beautiful Red House Painters showed up on Relax Trax one afternoon. Additionally, spinner.com claims to listen to audience feedback through a "rate this song" drop down menu on the player.

You can listen to music at spinner.com either as a web-based application, "Spinner Lite," that you initiate from their site, or, for Windows operation systems only, "Spinner Plus" is downloadable software. While the technology employs the utterly lame Real Audio, it's not in Real Player and I have had a fraction of the problems as when I go through Real Player directly for other streaming audio. One note of caution if you download the software, make sure you uncheck the option to have Spinner Plus launch each time you boot up. Otherwise the sizable faceplate, or "skin" in net terminology, pops up on your desktop, looks to see if you're connected to the internet and tells you if you're not. As much as a music nut as I am, I don't need to have Spinner Plus in my face all the time.

The Spinner Plus has a number of well-conceived user-friendly features, including the ability to preset 21 channels in three, seven-channel groups that appear as tabs across the top of the skin. There are two minimizing options for the application when it's running. The first sets the important info into a toolbar that can live either at the bottom or top of your screen: artist, song, volume control, stop, hyperlink to buy the cd. Or you can minimize it all the way to your open applications panel. In expanded mode, Spinner Plus also tells you the album from which the track is taken - though the default is too frequently a greatest hits title and not the album where the cut originally appeared - and shows you upcoming artists in the current channel.

My favorite feature is a vast improvement on scanning the radio dial. By rolling your mouse over your preset channel tabs, you can see what's playing elsewhere without leaving the song you're currently listening to behind. Very nice! Also, for stodgier workplaces, the "boss button" on Spinner Plus is your escape key which minimizes the skin to your open applications tool bar. Best of all, there are no ads interrupting the music. Banners are served at spinner.com's homepage along with the expanded version of Spinner Plus. The "buy this" link takes you to Amazon.

As you might imagine, the sound is practically uninterrupted on a dedicated line like the T-1 connection at my regular gig. At home, I have a 56k modem and there is "net congestion" from time to time and the sound can fall out when I'm using the modem for multiple tasks like downloading email. That the Spinner Plus software is not available for the Mac OS is a shame for Apple users among us. A letter-writing campaign to Real Networks is the only solution offered at the site.

Being the internet, spinner.com must be populated by a plethora of GenXers who haven't a classical music clue. There are only five channels to choose from, one of which is "movie scores." Here's a hint: add Bach, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Beethoven as themes and you've doubled your offerings.