I get the impression that this site is meant to be used with Last.fm, but actually it’s a pretty good tool all by itself. Sleevenotez is in alpha at http://www.sleevenotez.com .

Sleevenotez allows you to search for musical acts and get information from several different sources on one page, including from Wikipedia, Flickr, and YouTube. And though sometimes it’s hysterically wrong, it also found me things that I hadn’t found before.

The front page will encourage you to log in, use Last.FM, etc. Ignore that. Use the artist search in the upper-right corner. I started with a search for Eurythmics. I got two matches — both Eurythmics and Eurythmics/Aretha Franklin. Choosing Eurythmics, I got a page of Eurythmics information. Starting with artist information from Wikipedia, the page also contained list of albums from the band, photos from Flickr, a discography, and videos from YouTube.

The Wikipedia article of course was right-on, and the list of videos was interesting (though by no means complete.) On the other hand the Flickr photos contained a variety of images, including a picture of a slug and a skyscape. There were also shots of Eurythmics album covers and a live appearance of the Today show, but it looks like Sleevenotez is just searching for Eurythmics as a keyword.

Professor Longhair as a search term worked both better and worse. Searching for that term found both the artist name and his real name (Henry Byrd). A listing for Professor Longhair also found the Wikipedia article, Flickr photos, YouTube, etc. Interestingly the Flickr photos were more relevant (including paintings and a shot of the sign at Tipitina’s) but the YouTube videos were all over the place. Some of them were Longhair performances, some of them were other artists performing Longhair songs, and one of them was a guy playing a Longhair song and singing the theme from the Dukes of Hazzard (this worked disturbingly well.)

Sleevenotez works best when the artist name is distinct. When it isn’t the system breaks down. Searching for The Peels found the correct discography and some interesting Flickr photos (unfortunately the Peels don’t seem to have a Wikipedia entry), but the videos were all wrong. Searching for techno artist Olive was hysterically funny — the discography and a couple of the YouTube videos were right, but the Wikipedia article was for olive-the-food, and the pictures of course were similarly-oriented. If the name of the artist you’re seeking is common, you might want to use a musician name instead.

I found this a great information aggregator; it introduced me to a lot of videos and photos I might have missed otherwise. Worth a look.