Have you ever heard a great tune on the radio or in a club and wondered what it was? Ever wanted to find the name of the artist by searching for a fragment from the song? This is exactly what Shazam has to offer. Using just a ten second portion of the song, you can quickly find the exact name and artist without breaking a sweat using this awesome app.
Shazam is available on a wide range of smart phones. There are applications for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 and Nokia. For those in the United Kingdom there is also the option of dialing 2580 from any phone. This works by holding your phone next to the music source after dialing and receiving a text message with the search result at the end.
Shazam on Android
First if all, it is quite simple to use. The process of searching for a song is called tagging. When tagging you have to make sure you keep the device’s microphone close to the source and limit as much as possible other noises. After waiting for 10 seconds until the animation is complete, the data will be sent to Shazam in order to be analyzed. Their library consists of more than 8 million tracks starting from the ’50s. This means you may occasionally end up with a not found message when searching for a new remix you’ve just heard.
When you find what you are looking for, the app displays lots of information about the track, including the title, album, genre, label and lots of options:
- Tour Info – searches for upcoming concerts in your area that include the artist. You can set your location via GPS or manually and the radius (how far are you willing to travel). Tickets are available for purchasing directly from the app.
- YouTube Video – performs a search on YouTube for the track.
- Recommendations – lists other similar songs.
- Facebook – post on your wall.
- Twitter – tweet the song.
- SMS – send a SMS with the Shazam tag URL.
- Email – send the Shazam URL via email
- Biography – shows a short biography.
- Discography – lists the albums and songs which may be browsed and used the same way as tags, with their own info and options.
After tagging, Shazam keeps a history of all the songs you have found using their service so you can quickly go back and browse them. You cannot disable the history tab, but you can erase it at any time in the settings screen.
The chart tab is probably displaying the top tags people are searching for. The 4th tab is just a shortcut for the mobile version of their blog which can be found at www.shazamers.com. The downside is that it does not open the browser app with the URL. Instead, the browser is embedded within Shazam’s app so you don’t have access to functions such as address, bookmarks or other tools provided by your browser. The same is true when purchasing a ticket through Shazam.
Finally, the settings screen has quite a few options to choose from. You can enable tagging on start up which would save you a click tap and whether to vibrate after searching. The delete history that was mentioned before in this review is present.
Unlike its iPhone counterpart, the Android app is free and has unlimited tags/month. The service is ad-supported so you will notice an advertisement at the bottom.
Summary
| QR code |
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| name | Shazam |
| publisher | Shazam Entertainment Limited |
| price | free |
| advertising-supported | yes |
| version | 2.1.1 |
| size | 851KB |
| developer contact | android.support (at) shazamteam (dot) com |
Other resources
If there is something we missed out or you wish to find other resources for this application, be sure to check the following links:
- Official Shazam website
- Shazam blog
- Shazam Facebook page
- Shazam on Twitter