Most people have at one time or another–or, you know, every single day–stared into the great information sinkhole that is a database-driven Web site and wasted a great deal of time. As Internet technology becomes more advanced this process only becomes more efficient, yet paradoxically more time-consuming. It’s in this spirit that I checked out Soundflavor, an unholy mixture of Pandora, Allmusic, and YouTube with a large database of artist profiles and links to videos featuring an artist’s songs (plus a link to buy songs legally, in the unlikely event that you choose that route). After selecting a song, a little window listing 25 similar songs compiled by Soundflavor–again, complete with YouTubage–pops up. It’s as flawed as it is brilliantly convenient. Let’s waste some time, shall we?

To test the service I searched three very different artists, chose a song by each, and explored the “One-Click Playlist” option. The results were confusing and at times pitiable, but marginally successful.

[Note: Looks like every time you re-visit the playlist links there are different videos, so what I'm writing about (the playlist as I originally saw it) may not match up to what you see if you click the link.]

The “Wires and Waves” (Rilo Kiley) Playlist
In the great tradition of Pandora, it seems Soundflavor is keen to match bands primarily on the gender of their singer. As a long-time Rilo Kiley fan and a self-respecting human, I’m insulted that Tori Amos showed up on this list. A truly horrific misstep. Other failures include a video of a guy playing a ukulele for the song “Hammond” by Birdie, labeling “Knowing the Things That I Know” by The Blow as “Come On Petunia” (another YouTube mishap), and many shitty live recordings. That being said, the playlist essentially served its purpose of introducing me to new music. I enjoyed songs by Sahara Hotnights and Thao, neither of which I’d heard before, and was convinced that the Fiery Furnaces have put out at least one song since Gallowsbird’s Bark actually worth my time (”Police Sweater Blood Vow” from Bitter Tea).

The “Pencil Thin Mustache” (Jimmy Buffett) Playlist
This playlist is definitely the most disastrous of the three. The second video on the list–after the bizarrely artsy clip for “Pencil Thin Mustache”–is a particularly rough-around-the-edges good ol’ boy doing a karaoke version of MIckey Gilley’s “Don’t The Girls All Get Prettier At Closing Time” in front of green screen pictures of pretty ladies and ladies who start to look pretty at closing time (Rosie O’Donnell, for example). The other lowlight among a list of generally underwhelming selections is an uncalled-for and downright creepy Cliff Richard video. Also, for some reason, the Monkees seem to be curiously grouped in with Jimmy Buffett; there’s a clip for “Good Clean Fun” and a Michael Nesmith solo track. There are a few good–or at least apropos–selections (”Tokin’s” by Steve Miller Band, “Helpless” by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young), but the vast majority of the videos are just terrible covers of already pretty bad songs.

The “I Love Boosters!” (The Coup) Playlist
If there’s one thing I learned from this playlist, it’s that political rap fans are upstanding YouTube users. Out of 25 videos there’s only one glitch–some Irish dude with an acoustic guitar in what’s supposed to be a video for “Emotional” by Listener. But other than that I was presented with official music videos, good live performances, or simply the song with a picture of the artist. It’s definitely the most successful of the three playlists; almost all the videos function as intended, all of the tracks fit in with “I Love Boosters!” and many of them are actually good suggestions.

On a scale of 1-10 (1 being completely useless, 10 being the ultimate music consumption tool), Soundflavor is at about 6.5. It’s got the slick Web 2.0 interface of Pandora, but with more control, and the database features of Allmusic, but with more functionality. As an information aggregator it’s pretty impressive–even drawing from Flickr tags to provide pictures on an artist’s page–but its glitches are many and frequent, and its artificial taste has a long way to go if it thinks I’m in any way interested in Michael Nesmith’s solo career.