Android App-Aholics Anonymous: Shazam

App: Shazam

Developer: Shazam Entertainment Limited

Price: Free

App-Aholic Rating: 4/5

 

The days are long gone when you heard a song on the radio and had to rely on the DJ to tell you what you were listening to. Often times, they didn’t even tell you the name or artist, they just quickly moved on to the next song. Frustrated, you were left to wonder who the heck sang the song and when it would be played again (judging by the current state of radio, I can safely say it would be played three times within the hour). This week’s Android app review covers an app that helps my fellow neurotic, OCD, “I gotta know who the frak sang that song” music lovers. That app is called Shazam. True, this app has been around for a while, and surely you have already downloaded it onto your phone of choice, but this app is so darn helpful that it needs to be shown more love. It’s a pretty simple app. When you want to get info on any song, just open Shazam and let the app listen to the music. The cool stuff comes after the song is identified. You don’t just get the name of the song and artist. You get lyrics to the song identified, and those lyrics stream in sync with the song. It even allows you to view music videos and concerts of the artist via YouTube and gives you a discography of the artist. You can also see when the artist is touring and share your tagged music on Facebook and Twitter. Tagging music is free and unlimited, so you don’t have to worry about how much you use the app. Shazam isn’t limited to music, however. You can use it on TV as well, although the TV use is limited to when you see the Shazam prompt on screen. I have yet to use this app to tag something on my television, but according to the developers you can get extra content by tagging something on TV. Shazam also allows you to place a widget on your homescreen so you can tag tracks quickly and not have to open the app up every single time. Overall, the app is extremely straight forward and easy to use. The interface is simple and looks great. The most impressive thing about Shazam is the amount of information you get when you tag a song. Because of the ease of use, the beauty of the app itself, and the amount of information that is provided for each track or artist, this app is a must have for both the most hardcore music aficionado and the casual listener.

About Steven Brewer

I’m a lifelong comic book fan. Comics pulled me in at an early age, with influences ranging from Chris Claremont’s historic X-Men run, Walt Simonson’s Thor run, Mike Zeck’s run on The Punisher limited series, Jim Lee’s X-Men, the early 90’s X-Men animated series, and the best cartoon ever made, Batman: The Animated Series. As a kid, these comics and cartoons gave me a new world to go to when the real world wasn’t so nice. Because of this, comic books will always have a special place in my heart. I love everything about comics, and still get the same feeling reading them today as I did when I was a kid. My major in college was psychology, so I love to incorporate that into comics.
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