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In many ways watching music is more riveting than just listening, but all for all the strengths of the Internet music TV has not been one of them. Perhaps it’s a question of scope—there are so many music niches, and a more limited supply of videos that providing quality visual music with specific appeal could be too steep a task. While recently Pitchfork has thrown their hat into the ring, with the competent Pitchfork TV, Tim Bormans’ mashup of last.fm and youtube is far more compelling. A steady mix of live shows and videos of music based on actual listening habits makes for an addictive video stream.Borman’s idea works because he intelligently merges the best of two disparate systems together. Last.fm has a better idea of music preference because it’s based on actual listening habits. Youtube has a breadth of video selection unparalled, which can be a good thing when well applied. Youtube’s weak on it’s on for video hopping, because it may assume that because I enjoy Rocket from the Crypt I’ll also like footage of Rocket Man by Elton John. It doesn’t know me well enough, and last.fm just doesn’t have videos. But together they appear nearly unstoppable.Here’s what I saw tonight:

• Refused live song with surprising good audio
• Homemade Postal Service music video, which was a little creepy but very well edited
• Ben Folds Five covering “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head’ live with Burt Bacharach (!?) conducting a small orchestra
• The Shins video for ‘Australia’ which I didn’t know existed
• The Mars Volta’s Askepios video, which I was unaware of and think is one of the weirdest videos I’ve seen in a very long time
• The Cake, which apparently was confused for Cake. Let me assure you the two bands have nothing in common, but The Cake was probably hot stuff in 1967.
• The Faint, audio-only track played over a bizarre smily face static image
• Flogging Molly official video, for a song I didn’t know had a video
• A weird Tooth and Nail backstage commentary on an unnamed band I’ve never heard of—skipped!
• A previously unreleased Flaming Lips song paired with a different Flaming Lips video
• The Beach Boys’ video for Good Vibrations which must be one of the best songs ever written
• Mates of States’ new (strange) video featuring lots of people wearing animal masks

Overall I heard a series of songs I really liked, The Cake excepted.While this is an amazing way to watch music, it’s not perfect. The full screen interface is solid, but in a smaller window the page layout is distracting.But for half an hour I was engaged and and treated to a series of videos I really liked and would never have thought to look for on my own.