iPhone App: Shazam

This is a pretty amazing App.  Shazam will listen to whatever music you are listening to and then fetch the title and album information. Ever hear the last part of a song on the radio that’s catchy and the DJ doesn’t say the name? Let Shazam listen.

I put it to the test.  Katie had quite a few songs in her iTunes that were mix CD’s and therefore they just said “Track 1″ etc.  In fact I think she had about three albums that were all in there as track numbers.  I put Shazam to work and it was able to find almost all of them just by listening.  It seems to have the most trouble with percussion, guitar, etc. because some of Katie’s folk songs were unrecognized.  I skipped over to the middle of the song and had better results than Shazam listening to the beginning.  I *think* it puts the music it hears into a mathematical algorithm and then matches it to a database: musical gene sequencing if you will.  Despite it not handling voices or live music, it was good enough to distinguish between the Queen/David Bowie song “Under Pressure” and “Ice Ice Baby”. That’s right.  I put it to the test.

Shazam is free in the App Store.  You can buy the (RED) version for $4.99 and a portion goes to fight AIDS in Africa and you have the added ability to look up concert tours.

What are some of *your* favorite apps?