Shazam (for iPad) Review

So you're in a bar with a few good friends reminiscing about the good ol' days when a song plays in the background. Not any song, that song. Unfortunately, that song's artist and lyrics reside in the dusty, cobweb-covered parts of your brain. Shazam was made for those kinds of nights.

Shazam, the free Android and iOS app that helps befuddled music fans identify songs, has undergone a recent revamp which adds numerous features including auto-tagging, interactive maps, television interaction, and more. If you find yourself frequently guessing song names or their performers, Shazam should be a part of your app library.

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You Got the Look
Shazam for iPad has a new look to accompany its new features. The home screen acts a discovery portal where you can view the top tracks (divided into the "Top TV," "Top Tracks," and "USA Chart" categories) across the Shazam network in real time.

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A menu bar at the bottom of the screen has icons that let you quickly access favorites, see your friends list, explore tags on an interactive map, tinker with settings, and manually launch Shazam's song-recognition technology. Shazam makes excellent use of the real estate afforded by the iPad .

How It Works
Shazam works by processing a very small sound snippet (called a fingerprint) in your environment, and matching it against sounds in its database. You can prompt Shazam to do that by tapping the spinning Shazam icon, or by toggling on the new iPad-exclusive auto-tagging feature. Auto-tagging places the app into a hand-free listening mode, which is visually represented by a red bar across the top of the screen.

I tested Shazam's ability to pick up songs by playing an iTunes playlist which featured a mix of popular and underground tracks. Shazam recognized The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," The Dirtbombs' "Ever Lovin' Man," Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," and even MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This," which I thought would prove problematic due to the "Super Freak" sample. Impressive. Portishead's "Sour Times" was the lone song that Shazam didn't recognize.

Playback and Maps
When Shazam makes an audio match, it opens an artist's page that showcases a discography, interactive map, YouTube videos, lyrics, and an iTunes store link. Tapping the play button (or the Rdio icon should you have the app installed) lets you listen to a song snippet. Each song listing has a star in the upper-right corner that favorites tracks when tapped. Album art from discovered songs lives on the home screen in a Cover Flow-like manner, so that you can quickly return to them.

Shazam's map is easily one of the coolest new additions, as it lets you see what's popular around the globe. The map shows a handful of songs icons when you view it from a worldwide perspective, but as you drill down by continent, country, city, and neighborhood, more song and listening options appear. "Power Trip" by J. Cole and Miguel was the most tagged song in East New York, Brooklyn, when I last fired up Shazam. It's really cool to see how song popularity varies as you move from location to location.

TV's Second Screen
Shazam picks up and recognizes audio coming from your TV, too. The app identifies not only music, but actual TV/movie information as well. I fired up Shazam as I watched a Castle episode, and was pleased to see my iPad transformed into a second screen that displayed show information culled from IMDB and Wikipedia. Shows with highly recognizable music—virtually everyything from MTV and VH-1—caused Shazam to feed my iPad with music information and helped me discover new tunes.

In addition, you'll find Shazam logos featured in select TV commercials, sporting events, and movie trailers. Shazaming when those logos appear on-screen lets read product information, purchase tickets, enter contents, and more.

Shazam!
Shazam for iPad is an app you should download simply to avoid being "that guy"–the person who bombards everyone in range with questions when a song you can't identify pumps through a party. Shazam's song recognition technology is surprisingly accurate, only failing to ID a single track during my time with the app. Give it a download.