Slacker Radio (2012)

Several streaming Internet radio services vie for your ear, but none match the all-around excellence that is Slacker Radio. Slacker's Web-based streaming Internet radio service deftly combines station creation and customization, an attractive interface, quality audio, on-demand services, and the latest addition, live talk radio. Slacker may not hang its hat on playlist building and curation like Songza?(Free, 4.5 stars), the Editors' Choice among free streaming music services, but it stands tall as the best all-around streaming music source.

Design and Interface
The updated Slacker features a slick, black-and-blue design that's highlighted by a row of tabs in the left portion of the interface, a main content area, and a small smattering of display ads if you've opted to use the free version. The overall dark appearance is in stark contrast to the light grays and whites that comprise the excellent Slacker (for iPad)?app (Free, 4 stars). Slacker has stated that the site would undergo changes that would bring its design closer to the iPad app's design. That's yet to happen, but AOL Radio (Free, 3.5 stars), which is now powered by Slacker Radio, has a similar design as the iPad app.

The tab area contains four main categories: "Home," "Now Playing," "Create Your Own," and "Devices." Clicking "Home" returns you to the home screen. The "Now Playing" section displays album art and track info for the track to which you're currently listening (if you have a paid account, you'll also see upcoming track information). "Create Your Own" lets you create a custom station or playlist. "Devices" lets you sync music from your PC to a Slacker Portable device. The main content area features a Cover Flow-like display that showcases the album art from previously played, current, and upcoming tracks.

Thankfully, Slacker's understandable and easy to use interface lets you view artist, album, and lyrics pages without leaving the page?a design element that Pandora and other streaming music sites would do well to duplicate.

The Slacker Radio Experience
You can dive into Slacker's deep catalog by selecting one of over 20 top-level categories (each of which has several channels) or keying in an artist or song title into the search engine. If you go the search-engine route, Slacker will cull a tightly weaved station. Typing "Hendrix" into the box caused Slacker to fire up "The Wind Cries Mary," and afterward pushed through Jimi songs. I fine-tuned the experience by clicking the "Ban" icon to prevent a song from appearing. Clicking the heart-shaped "Favorite" icon, however, gave a song extra weight, causing Slacker to play it more frequently.

Slacker offers three listening plans for music fans. With Slacker's free, basic plan you can skip a maximum of six songs per hour and must endure audio advertisements. Subscribing to the $3.99 per month Slacker Plus lets you remove advertising, skip an unlimited number of songs, and customize the new lifestyle channels. The new $9.99 Slacker Premium (which we used for this review) lets you cache stations, create stations based on a specific artist, view artist pages, access "hearted" songs from a dedicated Favorite Songs area, and play songs and albums on-demand. The on-demand playback is easily the coolest new feature, as you no longer have to wait for Slacker to serve up tracks; I simply keyed a song title into the search box and listened to my favorite tunes. Some songs, however, aren't available via on-demand due to licensing.

Slacker Plus and Premium are more expensive than Pandora's $36 annual subscription, but its free, basic service gives you unlimited free streaming (Pandora will charge 99 cents for the remainder of the month once you pass 40 hours of listening). Slacker Radio saves each station automatically, so you can listen again the next time you log in. Clicking an artist's name takes you to the Album Page, which is one of the best recent Slacker additions. You can play an entire individual album?in sequence?from beginning to end, or rifle through all of an artist's tracks that are in the library. This is a feature that I've longed for since Slacker's inception and I'm glad to finally see it implemented. It's a gift to music diehards.

Clicking the drop-down arrow next to a station name let me email the station link to others, Tweet the station, edit the station (name, banned artists, favorite artists, more) favorite the station, or visit the station page where I could edit the "seed" artists. In turn, I could also tap the play button (located on the "Requests" tab) next to those artists' names and play their particular stations. There are also options for activating/deactivating the Slacker DJ, as well as ABC News' hourly news updates.?Slacker gives you the option to purchase music: clicking the "Buy" button (located to the right of a song's name) lets you purchase songs from Amazon MP3.

Slacker's latest additions are excellent: ESPN, and ABC Radio's Men's Life and Women's Life channels. ESPN Radio streams live audio to listeners in select cities (Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York) that include not only the brand's staple shows (like Mike & Mike in the Morning), but sporting events as well (such as Wimbledon 2012). The Men's Life and Women's Life channels feature content from the likes of Car & Driver, Complex Magazine, and GQ. Here you'll find tips for night driving, easing a hangover, fashion advice, and more. The additions, when combined with ABC News and the four comedy channels, push Slacker into a realm beyond just streaming music; Slacker has become a streaming audio juggernaut that appeals to radio lovers of all types.

Music Selection, Sound Quality, and Mobile Apps
Slacker contains over 20 top-level genre categories with most categories containing at least three to four sub-categories, including artist showcases and concert spotlights?there's a lot of music. I really dug the "Graffiti6 ?Showcase" which mixed band interviews with tunes from artists that were great influences on the band members (Craig Mack, The Eagles, Prince, and more).

Slacker streamed crisp, hiccup-free audio (at 128 Kbps) over my home and office network connections. Unless you're an audiophile, Slacker's sound quality will satisfy even when the audio is pumped through computer speakers. A Razer Star Wars The Old Republic headset revealed Slacker's excellent audio quality; bass lines were full and bouncy, and there was a good separation of high and low sounds. Slacker suffers the occasional freeze, but it's nowhere near as annoying as Spotify's?free service (4.5 stars), which is riddled with ads that sometime interrupt songs.

Slacker also offers a wide selection of portable options. There are free apps available for the Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPad devices. If you subscribe to a paid account, you can cache stations for offline playback.

Tune Into Slacker Radio
Slacker's excellent Web design, quality streaming audio, on-demand access, live radio, and deep customization options make it the Editors' Choice pick among premium streaming audio services. Songza remains our Editors' Choice among free services, thanks to its excellent music-discovery features, but if you love radio and don't mind opening your wallet for great music, Slacker is our Editors' Choice for premium streaming music services.

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