Ever heard a nice piece of music and did not know what artist was behind it? Did you enjoy it so much that you went straight to the DJ or to that radio's web page to try and get an answer? If so, this is all you'll ever need and... it's totally free. I know this sounds a bit like the local shopping channel but it's absolutely true, all you need is an Android Phone and an internet connection, either wireless or 3G ( it will work even with 2G but it may take a bit longer to match the track). This is not absolutely new, Sony Ericsson had an app on their phones called TrackID that did pretty much the same thing, but of course this Android app is much more user friendly.
When you start Shazam you get 2 big buttons: “Tag Now” and “My Tags”.
As soon as you click on “Tag now” the app starts to listen to the music and record a sample. After the recording it tries to match the sample took against the online database that they have and most of the times you will get the answer that you were looking for. I have tried this app in noisy and loud clubs, in nice quiet restaurants and in even made it listen to my headphones and was amazed of the precision it delivered.
The “My Tags” functionality gives you the ability to see all your previous music searches. This is really neat because you don't have to write down somewhere the name of the artist and the track every time you tag some piece of music, just click on “My Tags” and there they are.
When viewing the details of a tag you get most of the times an album cover as well as other details so it's easy to get a visual impression of what you are searching for. You are also provided with the options to search Amazon MP3 and YouTube for that particular track or view the artist's MySpace page if it's available.
You can download the application from the Android Market or visit the developer's web page for more information on this.
