Get the Latest Shazam, Win a Free Upgrade from Me!

Keeping on our classical music theme from yesterday... Like many of you, I've had Shazam on my iPhone since the app launched in 2008. What started out as a party trick for me (look what MY phone can do!) slowly, over time, morphed into a "So what are the kids listening to these days?" necessity. But one thing that remained frustrating about the app was that it couldn't tell Mozart from Bach. In fact, it didn't seem to have ANY classical music catalog in its database.

Well, it's nowhere close to perfect now, but in recent months, Shazam has actually started identifying most of the major pieces of classical music I've thrown its way. And, this will come as little surprise, even giving me the specific recording I'm listening to in that moment complete with conductor and orchestra names and year recorded. This is especially important when trying to discern the difference between, say, Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations recorded in '55 vis-à-vis the one recorded in '81. (For the, er, record, I prefer the '55… less singing! heh. heh.)

The good folks at Shazam haven't done any major press around this advancement. My hunch is they're keeping it on the DL until they expand their archive. So for now, this post on this blog might be the only Google-able news on the app's classical music evolution. A little over a year ago, I wrote about Shazam's inability to tag classical music over on the mental floss blog and people in the comments were suggesting other apps like Soundhound. I've tried them, but this new version of Shazam is much, much better than all the others. Plus, I'm totally loving the new UI. It's a much improved tagging experience. Now if they'd only get rid of the annoying ads! Sigh. Well, "I can dream, can't I?" (Written by Sammy Fain with lyrics by Irving Kahal, published in 1938, from the musical, Right This Way.) Oh, and, of course, you CAN get rid of the ads... you just need to move from freemium to premium, which they call "Encore" and costs you $6.99 for a life-time subscription. SO here's a challenge to you loyal neatoramanauts:

If 5 people leave comments below telling me why they think I should upgrade, and another 5 tweet @neatorama why I should plunk down the $6.99, not only will I do it, but I'll cover another $6.99 for one of the lucky 10, chosen at random.

Ready, set, SHAZAM!


I have also been on the Shazam bandwagon (android user) since the get-go! As you said, it was more of a parlor trick at first. But now it's truly my most used app. My favorite (new) feature of shazam is that you can tag TV shows and movies. After tagging, you can find any music that played in that particular episode of the show, or the soundtrack for a movie. Let's say you're watching The Simpsons, and you just can't quite figure out who that guest cameo's voice belongs to. Simply tag the episode and Shazam will tell you!

I've always loved this app, and it continues to get better and better! But.....those darn ads!
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This great news! I had given up using Shazam for classical music a long time ago and have been using SoundHound exclusively for classical music. You should upgrade so that you can upgrade me to the premium version. I Shazam pretty much daily and I hate the ads too!
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