Shazam: Music's Magic 8 Ball

Remember the days when you liked a song and had to wait for the radio announcer to say the name or the artist? App's like Shazam and SoundHound figured out a way to "listen" to a short fragment of songs and identify them. Now, that action in itself it's not transcendental, only when you account for how many hits and tags have been made, can you actually trace some "statistics" and behavior. 

The Hollywood Reporter recently did an article on Shazam being a predictor for the nations hits. In the article it states that, "according to the company’s own data, 85 percent of songs that get to No. 1 on Shazam's tag charts go on to become bonafide smashes." But can we really trust the app as a predictor? The importance behind this is for music companies and artist to early identify how the success or fail of a song is going to be to be able to manage it on time. Whether they need to put more effort in marketing, what song to release next or even release an album earlier, these statistics matter.

The article points out that, “among the 2012 examples cited is Gotye’s “Somebody I Used to Know,” the top tagged song of the year in the U.S., U.K. and the world, with 14.9 million tags.” with Rihanna being the most tagged artist in the last 12 months. But, if you take a look at the Top 10 chart from Shazam you’ll see that most of the artists on the list are relatively new to mainstream media; such as: Goyte, Fun., Ellie Goulding, Alex Clare, and The Wanted (in that order). This tells me that we are just looking at the list of the unknown. After all, the app’s main function is to identify a song for you. People like Britney Spears or Nicki Minaj who have had chart topping hits the last 12 months are not on the list. 



Shazam’s list is definitely a great indicator, but for new artists. It is, after all, a multimillion user app that can depict trends among them. It is in fact an indicator and it does have the data to back it up. We just have to know what to do with and what questions to ask.

Resource:

• THR Staff. (2012). Rihanna, Gotye, Fun. Among Shazam's Most Tagged Artists of 2012. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved from: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/shazam-most-tagged-2012-rihanna-gotye-396587