Slacker Radio, Tidal, and other streaming music apps boast of their ability to introduce listeners to new tunes by using secret-sauce algorithms or community input, but few of them can match WhoSampled's music-discovery chops. The $299 iPhone app WhoSampled (the Android version is free), based on the popular website of the same name, helps you connect the musical present to the past by highlighting the song snippets that were used to build other songs. If you're a diehard music or music-trivia fan, you'll definitely want this iPhone app.
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You begin by signing in with your Facebook credentials, or by creating a dedicated account from within the app. Neither is actually required to use the app, but I recommend that you do so if you want to save samples to the My Favorites section.
Next, you perform a search to take a deep dive into the world of song samples. When I typed "Boot" into the search box, WhoSampled displayed the most-popular musical boots ever sampled, including Parliament alum Bootsy Collins and Duke Bootee. WhoSampled also displays the number of times an artist's been sampled, covered, and remixed. According to WhoSampled, Bootsy Collins has been sampled more than 600 times!
It's a breeze to manually input data, though I would love a Shazam-like music recognition feature that identifies songs playing in the environment for when you hear a song and wonder if that one riff or lick is original or borrowed.
Similar Products
WhoSampled (for Android)
Slacker Radio (for iPhone)
Tidal (for Android)
iHeartRadio (for iPad)
The WhoSampled Experience
Tapping the Bootsy Collins icon took me to a screen at which I performed several actions, including participating in a Bootsy Collins forum discussion and viewing the tracks that he either performed or produced. The latter option proved the most interesting.
When I tapped the listing for Bootsy Collins' "I'd Rather Be With You," WhoSampled displayed the songs that sampled it (including Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" and Estelle's "Speak Ya Mind") and, conveniently, the sample's timestamp, so you know when in song the sample begins. As with the Android version, select WhoSampled for iPhone results link to 7digital or YouTube clips so that you can listen to samples without leaving the app. A prominent Buy icon lets you purchase music from iTunes.
Tapping the Charts icon reveals a list of samples that are currently hot on the music charts. For example, The Isley Brothers' "That Lady" powers Kendrick Lamar's "I." The app shows the most popular cover songs and remixes, too. There's also a Hall of Fame section that highlights the all-time most-sampled (The Winstons' "Amen, Brother"), most-covered (Traditional Folk's "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"), and most-remixed (DJ Chus and The Groove Foundation's "That Feeling") tracks. If you're into music history or trivia, this is a very useful tool.
Bringing a finger to the My Library icon causes WhoSampled to scan your tablet or smartphone and display information about the songs it finds. It even works with relatively obscure music. For example, WhoSampled revealed that Ted Poley and Tony Harnell's "Escape From the City" (from the Sonic Adventure 2 video game soundtrack) has been sampled once and remixed twice. Likewise, WhoSampled accurately noted that Led Zeppelin's "The Lemon" contains three samples, including Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues" and Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor."
The app now features Spotify ($0.00 at Apple.com) integration, so you can also scan the streaming service's playlists to reveal song samples—and it works well. Even better, WhoSampled works with both free and paid Spotify accounts, so no one is prevented from sampling samples. Whosampled says that this feature, which is only on the iPhone app, is headed to the Android version before the end of the year.
Encore
WhoSampled offers a very specialized take on music discovery that not only shows the connections between songs, but between musical eras, too. While the Android version is free, you have to pay for the iPhone version, which is a bit annoying.
Despite the $2.99 cost, Whosampled is an excellent iPhone app that music historians, or those curious about this particular aspect of music production, should immediately download. It's an Editors' Choice iPhone app. And once you discover the tracks that help build your favorite songs, open Slacker Radio ($0.00 at Apple.com) or Spotify, the co-Editors' Choices for iPhone music apps, to listen to the tunes in their entireties.
A fine app for music historians and sample hunters, WhoSampled lets you unearth the songs that laid the foundation for other songs.
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