Shazam, a prominent music-identification service that has been owned by Apple since 2018, turns 20 this August. In honor of it, the website shares its most popular tunes
Shazam is already 20 years old, which is hard to believe. This month marks 20 years since the launch of the music-identification service, which has been owned by Apple since 2018. As such, the service has prepared an unique commemorative offering; an Apple Music playlist including annual recollections of the most Shazamed song since the service’s inception in 2002.
“Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran, “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele, “Lean In” by Mayor Lazer, and “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence can be found on the playlist “20 Years of Shazam Hits.” It’s a great chance to reflect on recent hits as well as revisit the music. It also served as the background score to many people’s formative years.
Commemorative offering
The celebration has also revealed some intriguing and unexpected information about Shazam’s first two decades. For instance, Drake has more than 350 million shazams during his career, making him the most Shazamed artist ever. However, more than 41 million people have shazamed the song “Dance Monkey” by Tones And I.
Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” was the first song to surpass 1 million shazams in February 2010. Meanwhile, BTS’s Butter was the quickest to reach 1 million shazams, doing it in just 9 days.
The 20th anniversary of Shazam’s launch has prompted the company to reveal a number of interesting data. Even more impressively, the firm has 225 million monthly users throughout the world and has just surpassed 70,000 million song recognitions, giving it access to a whole new level of data. Not bad for something that has kept its core value while evolving to meet the needs of new technologies.
Music-recognition app Shazam turns 20
Shazam is an interesting example because its original functionality was somewhat different from its current state. When it was unveiled in 2002, the iPhone was still a utopian vision that wouldn’t be fulfilled for five years, and Android hadn’t yet dominated the smartphone business. Internet Explorer never had a browser that could install add-ons like Google Chrome.
As a matter of fact, the song identifier’s original scope of operation was confined to the UK. Calling “2580” and leaving the line silent for a few seconds allowed the receiver to pick up the audio of the currently playing song. Once the call was over, the recipient would get a text message with the song’s name and the artist’s name. Although revolutionary at the time, these ideas are hopelessly dated now.
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Shazam was able to stay up with the digital scene thanks to cellphones. In 2008, its iOS and Android apps debuted in the Apple App Store. With the Apple Watch in 2015, it made a big stride forward, and by 2017 Apple had purchased it. Apple Music has acquired new features and lost Spotify compatibility over time.
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