Shazam celebrates 20th anniversary with over 70 billion song recognitions

Shazam, the Apple-owned music discovery service, has turned 20 today. As a part of the celebrations, Shazam revealed that it has surpassed the 70 billion mark in its history of song recognitions. Today, as many as 225 monthly users identify songs on Shazam globally, and Drake’s their favourite. Shazam said Drake is the most Shazamed artist with over 350 million discoveries, and his song “One Dance” garnered over 17 million Shazams.

To mark the event, Apple has created a special playlist, “20 Years of Shazam”, comprising the most Shazamed song of each calendar year for the past 20 years. So maybe get a bit nostalgic listening to songs such as “Hey, Soul Sister” or “Cheap Thrills.” Shazam is integrated into the iPhone and Siri, while on Android, you can use the app to recognise music.

Shazam’s milestones

Shazam launched as a text message service in the UK in 2002. To identify songs, users needed to dial ‘2580’ on their phone and hold the phone near the source of the song. The service would send a text message revealing the song title and the artist’s name. In July 2008, Shazam hit Apple’s App Store and then in October of the same year, it was available on Android. In April 2015, Apple acquired Shazam and, over the years, integrated it into all its products. In June last year, Shazam crossed 1 billion song discoveries per month. The next milestone of 2 billion Shazams per month took less than a year in May 2022.

The first-ever song identified on Shazam was “Jeepster” by T. Rex in April 2002. The first one on the iOS app was “How Am I Different” by Aimee Mann in July 2018. “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” by Eminem became the first track to reach 1,000 Shazams in September 2002, while the first one to reach one million Shazams was Ke$ha’s “TiK ToK” in February 2010. Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” featuring Kimbra became the first track to reach 10 million Shazams in December 2012. The first artist to hit 1 million was Lil Wayne in 2009, while David Guetta was the first to hit 100 million Shazams in 2015.

If you want to identify music using Shazam on your iPhone, go to Settings > Control Centre and Tap on the + sign next to “Music Recognition.” Now, tap the button to recognise music anytime, given you have an active internet connection. Alternatively, you can install the app and discover songs from there. On Android, download the app from the Google Play Store and identify the music inside the app.

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