If ever a sign of the zeitgeist for sound in our time, Shazam now has a list of everything we’re hearing that goes viral.
The internet can be fun. The internet can be crazy. The internet can be a powder keg of genuinely interesting ideas. But if there’s one more thing the internet is, it’s a way to bring people together.
Whether that togetherness is on social or just coming to read a good story, bringing people together is one of the things the internet works to do.
And at least based on what Shazam has added in recent months, many of us are coming together in trying to identify the same sounds.
That is what Shazam was designed to do initially. Using a combination of the microphone, sound recording, and audio look up comparing works on a database, Shazam can help you work out what song you’re listening to, and can even be set up as a part of the dropdown shortcuts for an iPhone.
For folks actively identifying songs using Shazam, they may be curious to find out their music IDs are going somewhere: Shazam viral charts. Specifically, it’s a list of songs that have been collectively identified en masse, more or less highlighting popular sounds people can’t quite put their collective fingers on.
You can also order the list via country, to see what’s getting attention in your country specifically, or in another country you may not be in. However, the charts are updated daily, with the music listings giving you a taste of what people are listening to whether they realise it or not.
Given that Shazam boasted one billion uses of its music recognition technology per month back in 2021 and that was four years ago, it’s suggestive that we’re all listening to a lot of music, and actively trying to find it.
