When you are already on a computer, it’s easy to perform a Google search of the lyrics you remember to learn the title of a song. But what happens if you are in the middle of the grocery store or on the bus? With these five song-finder mobile apps, you can identify music anytime, even if you are the one singing the song.
1. Shazam
Price: Free
Whether trying to identify the latest trending TikTok sounds or add a radio tune to your favorite Spotify playlist, Shazam is one of the best song-finder apps available for mobile devices.
When you launch the app, it listens to everything playing around you and identifies songs in seconds. Once it identifies the song, Shazam lets you view the artist’s information and save it to your library. Additionally, you can open the song on your favorite music player (YouTube Music, Apple Music, or Spotify). Furthermore, Shazam will generate playlists for you based on the tunes you identify, letting you discover even more great music.
My favorite Shazam feature, though, is its Share function. With this, you can send an identified tune to your friends or family via text message, WhatsApp, email, and more. You can even use Android Quick Share to send songs to other nearby devices.
2. SoundHound
Price: Free
SoundHound is another excellent song-finder app and a direct competitor with Shazam. It offers many of the same features, and the interface looks nearly identical. However, SoundHound has some added tools to help make it even easier for users to identify songs.
SoundHound is designed not only to pick up on music actively playing around you, but also to identify songs based on your rendition of them. In other words, you can sing or hum what you remember of a tune, and SoundHound will find it for you. Shazam fails here, making SoundHound a particularly great music identifier for those who often get songs stuck in their head.
Furthermore, SoundHound lets users create their own playlists and pull them up on Spotify. Of course, this feature requires you to link your Spotify account to SoundHound, but it can be a great way to expand your listening experience.
3. Musixmatch
Price: Free with premium option
If you enjoy reading the lyrics of your favorite songs, Musixmatch is your song-finder app. It helps you identify tunes and understand their meaning.
The app will display the lyrics when you identify a song using Musixmatch. You can then read through them, listen to the song with them, or share the song lyrics with someone else. You can save the song to a Favorites list, view other songs by the same artist, and view the song credits.
Unfortunately, you can only use Musixmatch to link your Spotify account. It does not support voice searches and does not connect with other music apps. Yet, it’s still a great song finder if you want the lyrics alongside the tune’s name.
4. BeatFind Music Recognition
Price: Free with premium option
Android users have another excellent option for a free song-finder app: BeatFind Music Recognition. This app is popular and well-tested.
The interface is similar to most of the other apps on this list. Once you open the app, tap to engage the microphone, and wait for it to analyze what it hears. The song title and artist will be displayed on the screen. You can stream identified songs from Spotify, Deezer, or YouTube, and share the discovered song across message, email, and social media platforms.
Like Shazam, this app isn’t designed to recognize tunes you sing or hum; it is only valuable if you want to identify songs you can currently hear in the background. However, you can view information about the artist and other songs by them, which can open the door to finding new music you love.
5. Deezer
Price: Free with premium option
Primarily known as a Spotify alternative, Deezer can also be used as a song identifier app. It is available for both Android and iOS, and its capabilities make it a great competitor for any of the other options on this list.
Under the search function, Deezer provides a “What’s this song?” tool. It can listen to music in the background, or you can choose “Sing now” to provide your personal rendition to figure out the tune stuck in your head.
Like Shazam, you can play a song, share it, or add it to a playlist. But because Deezer is a streaming app by default, you don’t need to link it to another app or exit Deezer to play the song. Furthermore, you can easily view the entire album from which the track is from, as well as other music and information from the artist. While it may not be the app’s primary function, I found Deezer to be a great way to identify songs quickly and save them for the future.
Never Forget Songs Again
With any of these apps on your device, you never again have to worry about that annoying problem of forgotten song titles or lyrics. However, if you need other tools to enjoy music throughout your day, there are numerous Chrome music extensions and free music download apps for Android and iOS.
Image credit: Pexels. All screenshots by Megan Glosson.
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