Shazam can name that tune, then serve it up with download links and more

Shazam is perfect for those moments when you hear a song but can’t quite put your finger on the name of the tune, nor the artist. It “listens” to music, then tells you the the artist, album, and track. It also displays links to download the song in iTunes or view related videos on YouTube. It’s amazingly accurate and the only downside we’ve seen is that it only works really well for pop music. With other music genres your mileage may vary.

We tested Shazam in places with heavy background noise like bars, in traffic, and at outdoor events. In all cases, Shazam delivered the goods. Shazam’s magic is really the result of two things: a fairly deep index of music combined with audio fingerprinting. Like we said, the fingerprinting is surprisingly accurate and will pinpoint the source of the music as long as it’s resident in the index. Shazam’s database will grow over time providing this audio recognition to many other music genres.

Shazam also takes advantage of tagging which allows you to log songs you hear throughout the day so you can come back to them later. This is helpful when you want to download the song in iTunes or watch the video on YouTube, but don’t have time when you actually heard the song. You can also attach photos to the tag to help you recall the context in which you heard it, like at a particular night club, at the beach, or maybe even during a movie. And tags can be shared by emailing them to your friends who also have Shazam on their iPhones.

Shazam is a must-have iPhone application for anyone who enjoys music and is worthy of its 4.5 star rating in the App Store. It is currently available for free, but only for a limited time, so be sure to go download Shazam today. iPod touch owners should be aware that the touch’s lack of a microphone limits Shazam to the iPhone only.

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