These days when a new music service launches itself, the sell is usually access to the latest cutting-edge content or classic pop genres. Count on the Library of Congress to offer something very different. The LOC's just released online National Jukebox offers cutting-edge material for sure, but circa 1901 through 1925: 10,000 ready-to-audit recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company.

"Imagine your computer as a new Gramophone purchased for family and friends to enjoy in your home parlor," the LOC's announcement proclaims. "Audition popular recorded selections of the beginning of the 20th century years—band music, novelty tunes, humorous monologues, hits from the season's new musical theater productions, the latest dance rhythms, and opera arias."

I immediately went to the jukebox's day-by-bay search option and found selections from my favorite early 20th century singer, the wonderful Irish-American tenor John McCormack. The first tunes available were his 1915 and 1916 hits "The Cradle Song" and "Then You'll Remember Me." A full search located his full orchestral performance of "Come Into the Garden, Maude."

Even if you're not a devotee of fin de siècle stars like McCormack and Enrico Caruso, it's well worth your spending a day exploring the Jukebox's acoustic universe. The service offers a slew of Blues, Ragtime, country/folk, yodeling, and even whistling tunes (I definitely recommend the Dance of the Honey Bees).

But what the National Jukebox really offers is a deep glimpse into a world in which the categories that we've attached to genres—"classical," "popular," and "opera"—weren't always so clear. This was an age when pop orchestra leaders played Berlioz, marching band conductors wrote operas, and opera divas sang "Home Sweet Home" for their often working class fans. It was a time when it wasn't always so easy to tell a Ragtime tune from the scherzo of a symphony.

One of the best aspects of the Jukebox is that you can create your own playlists, adding selections and enjoying them on an ongoing basis as you search for more content.

The Victor Talking Machine Company and other outfits captured these masterpieces not with electronic microphones, but via wide coned horns that siphoned the sounds into a little diaphragm, the vibrations of which were etched into waxed cylinders. Devices with steel needles then played the records back into a smaller tone arm tube.

Dozens of LOC staff and volunteers spent most of 2010 selecting these recordings, digitizing them, and getting them into the database for use. Sony Entertainment owns most of this content, but gave the LOC a license to stream the tunes gratis.

"Jukebox content will be increased regularly," the LOC promises, "with additional Victor recordings and acoustically recorded titles made by other Sony-owned U.S. labels, including Columbia, OKeh, and others."