Shazam turns 20 today. It is an icon on the smartphone and a piece of pop culture, one of the few internet services that has generated a verb used even in Italy (even if, let’s face it, “shazammare” is not exactly beautiful so we will not use it in this article). It has changed the way people approach music by making song identification accessible to everyone, and using it at least once a month by over 225 million users worldwide.
Shazam recognizes more songs and challenges Google and SoundHound
by Simone Cosimi
History
The app to recognize music was born from the idea of Chris Barton and Philip Inghelbrecht, students of the University of Berkeley, but unlike many other innovative ideas, it does not find financiers in Silicon Valley. The two then moved to London and in 2002 launched Shazam, initially known as 2580, which was the number to dial to send 30 seconds of the song heard to the service. The result came in the form of an SMS with the title of the song and the name of the artist, and later also a link to download the song online. In 2002 there are still no smartphones, mobile internet is slow and not very widespread, and the memory in phones at best is just a few MB.
How does it work
Shazam uses the phone’s microphone to record a sample of about ten seconds of the song to be identified, then creates a kind of acoustic fingerprint (spectrogram), which is compared to a central database. If the similarity is found, the information about the artist, the title and the lyrics of the song, the cover of the album where it is included, appear on the screen. Today the information is much richer: if available, there is a video, the link to YouTube, the next concerts, the most famous hits, a reasoned discography, the suggested albums and detailed information on the song, such as label, genre, authors , etc. And there is a link to listen to the song in full, but only to Apple Music: Shazam, in fact, since 11 December 2017, is owned by Apple, which acquired the company for 400 million dollars. It has remained an independent app, but the main features are also built into iOS: if you ask Siri what song we’re listening to, the search will take place with Shazam’s technologies and databases.
The curiosity
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The rankings
This week Shazam has exceeded 70 billion songs recognized: but in its twenty years of activity, it has followed and often even anticipated the musical trends of the moment. So Apple has seen fit to invite fans to a journey into memory with a special playlist composed of the most searched songs. The playlist ranges from big pop hits like Hey, Soul Sister of the Train e Cheap Thrills by Sia, up to emerging talents who became famous, such as Masked Wolf, who was one of the 5 artists to watch on Shazam in 2021 and then author of the most sought-after song globally last year with Astronaut In The Ocean.
In the ranking of the music that has been around us there is really everything: from Jeepster by T. Rex (first searched song, April 19, 2002), a Cleanin’ Out My Closet by Eminem (first song to reach 1,000 searches in September 2002), da ToK ToK of Ke $ ha (one million, in February 2010), a Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye feat. Kimbra (December 2012, 10 million requests). And again, in the various charts, for dance Prayer In C by Lilly Wood & The Prick and Robin Schulz, for pop Let Her Go by Passenger, for the Singer / Songwriter category Take Me to Church by Hozier.
But Shazam’s charts have also become a barometer for unexpected pop culture moments. Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush from 1985, inserted in Stranger Things, led to an all-time high of the singer’s Shazam, and the song placed # 1 on the Shazam Global Top 200 for 10 days. It ultimately reached the top of 25 national charts, more than any other song in 2022. On the other hand, however, Shazam also played a key role in bringing local artists to a wider audience. This is the case, for example, of Love Woman [Remix] by Nigerian artist CKay, longest-running global number 1 of 2021, the second song to exceed one million searches on Shazam in one week. “Shazam has played a pivotal role in my career,” said CKay. “It made me a global phenomenon even before I started performing around the world.”