Shazam and Soundhound

The problem comes up again and again. Hearing that great song, but having no way to identify it. Whether it be from listening to the car radio, or out at a party the problem of shouting out “What song is this?” has become a thing of the past.

This is all thanks to two apps, by the name of Shazam and Soundhound, available for free on both ios and android devices. Both apps come free on the app store and for this you have the ability to tag unlimited songs and identify them purely by recording a short snippet through the phone’s inbuilt microphone.

There is no denying how essential this concept is to any smartphone user, but the real question is which should be the go to app for identifying music.

Both apps offer the ability to view youtube videos of the tagged songs and get more information about artists so there is no leader in this regard. In terms of design and layout Shazam has stuck with the simple, clean and easy to use look which while easier to use is much less visually pleasing than what we see with soundhound. For me I prefer the easy to use Shazam layout, but if you’re into an aesthetic design then I would rank Soundhound on top.
Soundhound’s extra feature of being able to identify music through simply humming or singing a tune rather than recording music is an interesting aspect. It definitely affords Soundhound an extra mark, for that time when you can’t put a name to the tune stuck in your head.

These are all smaller matters in comparison to their ability to identify songs from snippets. I went through and tested both apps on a variety of songs and found that for the most part they are fairly equal. Most songs they either both got or neither got but there were a small number of lesser known songs that only Shazam came out with a correct answer. Essentially based just on identifying songs there seems to be only a slight advantage to Shazam.

So which app should you choose? Well it all depends entirely on personal preference. If you want to go for an aesthetic look with the added ability to identify music just through singing or humming then go with Soundhound. If you’re after a clean and easy to use app, which in our opinion is slightly better at identifying music, then go with Shazam. Either way the ability to identify music with these apps is the perfect addition to any smartphone users app library.