There are few things in life more annoying than having a song stuck in your head that you don’t know the lyrics to. It’s even worse when you don’t even know the title of the song or who the hell the artist is behind this banger. How are you supposed to stop singing gibberish to the tune of this track when you don’t know a single thing about it?
Thankfully, there are now quite a number of apps that help solve this conundrum. Using these tools, you’ll be able to identify the next song you come across and never awkwardly belt out nonsensical wrong lyrics ever again.
With music identification apps like Shazam, you will easily be able to find out exactly which song is playing, even if you only catch a few seconds of the song. Shazam is an identify music app, which listens to a part of a song and can instantly tell you the name of the song, the band that plays it and much more. Of course, to make a successful application or website like Shazam, it’s not enough just to copy its features and make a clone product. You’ll also have to think about some unique features that will make your app stand out from the competition. For example, Soundhound was the first app that made the hum recognition possible. There are more than 10 alternatives to Shazam for a variety of platforms, including the Web, Android, iPhone, Linux and iPad. The best alternative is SoundHound, which is free. Other great apps like Shazam are Midomi (Free Personal), Musixmatch (Freemium), MusicID (Free) and ACRCloud (Freemium).
1. Shazam
The song identifying app you’re probably most familiar with is . All users have to do is hold up their phone to the source of the music while the song is playing and tap a single button within the Shazam app. Shazam will listen in on the song and provide you with all the relevant info you’d need to know like the artist, title, and album. It’s extraordinarily accurate.
Shazam will also provide you with links to YouTube to where you can listen to or purchase the track. The app also keeps a nifty history of all the songs you’ve identified using Shazam.
Shazam is available on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and practically every other platform. You could also probably soon expect even more integration with Apple services like Apple Music as the company acquired Shazam, though its future on Android is now uncertain.
2. SoundHound
does pretty much everything Shazam does and even more. Just like Shazam, SoundHound can tell you what song is playing at the tap of a button.
But let’s say that song you just heard ended before you could whip out your phone and open Shazam. Not a problem. That’s where SoundHound comes in.
If that song stuck in your head isn’t currently playing, you can hum it or sing its tune into SoundHound and it can identify the song. Of course, this depends on how closely your vocal interpretation of the song is to the actual song you’re trying to figure out. But, if it’s not wildly off, SoundHound can get the job done.
In addition, just call out to your phone “OK Hound, what song is this?” and the app’s voice controls will take over. Shazam doesn’t have a hands-free option, giving SoundHound the upper hand while you’re driving the car.
SoundHound was originally known as a musical search engine called Midomi. In fact, the desktop version of SoundHound is still called . And, just like SoundHound which is available on iOS and Android devices, you can sing or hum that tune you just can’t figure out into your desktop computer or laptop’s mic and Midomi will figure it out with the same accuracy as the SoundHound app.
3. Google Sound Search
If you have a Pixel phone, you might be familiar with Google Play’s Now Playing feature. Like Shazam and SoundHound, Now Playing would listen in to the music surrounding you, match it with a database and let you know the artist and title. But, the thing that set Google’s feature apart was that it was always-on. You could pull out your Pixel phone at any time and Google would already display what song was playing because it was already listening.
Google has now brought that feature to its even more powerful cloud service which has a far greater dataset and performance capability. Ask any of your Android phone, Google Home, or any of your Google Assistant enabled devices “what song is playing?” and Google will serve you up with the answer.
Shazam Like Websites
4. Ask Siri or Alexa
Just like with a number of the aforementioned devices running Google Assistant, hardware with Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa can provide you with the results you need as well. Just call out to either and Siri or Alexa will listen in and let you know what they’re hearing. Hs coporation driver download for windows 10.
As previously mentioned, with Apple’s acquisition of Shazam, look for the company to start integrating the app with Siri.
5. Genius or Google Search
This is my own personal tried-and-true method. While I’ve used all the above apps and tools at some point or another, this has been the most accurate way to find out what song you’re listening to, in my experience.
When you hear a song, simply home in on a simple line from the lyrics. Then open either the song lyrics website Genius or just go to Google search. Type in those lyrics and the majority of the time you’ll get the track details you were looking for. When using Google, it’s especially helpful to put the lyrics in quotations so Google only looks for that exact string that’s sung in the song.
It may seem a little bit less intuitive, but for times when Shazam or the other services just couldn’t make out the track in a noisy setting or the song was by a lesser known artist, this trick got the job done.
Additional reporting by Barb Dybwad. Original story published in 2010 and updated in 2018.
You’re listening to music on the radio and this awesome song starts playing, but you missed the name. With music identification apps like Shazam, you will easily be able to find out exactly which song is playing, even if you only catch a few seconds of the song.
Shazam is an identify music app, which listens to a part of a song and can instantly tell you the name of the song, the band that plays it and much more. It can then tell you where you can download that exact song or the entire album. However, Shazam isn’t entirely free to use.
Fortunately, our team has gone through dozens of apps like Shazam, in order to provide you with tons of free Shazam alternatives. Browse our list below to never have to listen to a song without knowing what it’s called ever again!
SoundHound
The SoundHound app is probably one of the best apps like Shazam currently available. One of the best things about SoundHound is that it can recognize songs even when you sing it yourself or even hum it. This makes it easy to find songs when you don’t know the lyrics, but you know the flow of the song. SoundHound is easy to use and free, making it one of the top Shazam alternatives for Android and iOS.
Website Like Shazam For Pc
back to menu ↑MusicID
MusicID is another excellent option when searching for apps like Shazam. It lets you identify music that is playing around you. Whether it’s a song on the radio, someone singing it in the bus or even if you hear a great song in a TV commercial, the MusicID app helps you find out more about that song. You can even add notes and locations to each song that you identify on your phone.
back to menu ↑Shazam On Computer
MusiXmatch
The MusiXmatch app is another one of the excellent music identification apps available on iOS and Android. MusiXmatch is extremely simple to use and it’s completely free to own, making it one of the best music apps available. One of the really fun things about MusiXmatch is that it brings you the lyrics to each song you find, allowing you to sing along with the music.
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Sound Search
Apps Like Shazam For Pc
The Sound Search for Google Play app synchronizes with your Android phone, allowing you to rapidly identify songs. With the press of a button, you will be able to find the name, artist, album and more information. One of the great things about this Google Play app is that it can be placed directly on your home screen, preventing you from having to open an app to identify music on the go.