Celebrating Two Decades of Shazam
Shazam Celebrates 20 Years of Music Discovery, Achieves 70 Billion Shazams
Shazam, the popular music discovery app, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and reached a significant milestone of 70 billion all-time Shazams. Since its launch in 2002, the app has played a pivotal role in music discovery, bringing local artists to a global audience.
The journey began with the first-ever Shazamed song, "Jeepster" by T. Rex, on April 19, 2002. During the pre-launch public beta, the first band identified was Coldplay. Shazam officially launched as a text message service in the UK in August 2002, and later became available on various platforms, including the App Store in July 2008 and Android in October 2008.
Over the years, Shazam has been instrumental in identifying popular tracks. The first song to reach 1 million Shazams was "TiK ToK" by Ke$ha in February 2010, followed by "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye feat. Kimbra, which was the first track to reach 10 million Shazams in December 2012. The fastest track to reach 10 million Shazams was "Shape of You" by Ed Sheeran in just 87 days.
Shazam has also been a platform for many artists to achieve significant milestones. Lil Wayne was the first artist to hit 10 million Shazams in June 2011, and David Guetta was the first artist to reach 100 million Shazams in May 2015. The most Shazamed artist of all time is Drake, with over 350 million Shazams across songs the artist has led or featured on.
Interestingly, some of the most Shazamed songs have come from unexpected sources. "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley was the most Shazamed song using the "2580" text service. "Love Nwantiti [Remix]" by Nigerian artist CKay became the second song to ever surpass one million Shazams in a week and was the longest-running global No. 1 song of 2021 on Shazam's charts.
CKay, whose unique Nigerian sound gained popularity through Shazam, stated that the app allowed millions of people worldwide to discover him. Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" also benefited from Shazam's platform, ending up reaching the top of more than 25 national charts - more than any other song in 2022 - after being featured in "Stranger Things".
Shazam remains focused on the future of music discovery and uses new tools like the concert discovery feature to bring fans closer to the music and artists they love. The feature spotlights concert information and tickets on sale for shows nearby, simply by Shazaming a song or searching for it in the Shazam app or website. As of June 2021, Shazam surpasses 1 billion Shazams per month.
In 2018, Shazam joined the Apple family, continuing its mission to provide seamless music discovery experiences. As of May 2022, Shazam has surpassed 2 billion lifetime installs. The app's service was used for the first time during its prelaunch public beta, and it has come a long way since then. Here's to another 20 years of music discovery with Shazam!
Some of the most Shazamed songs across different genres include "Take Me to Church" by Hozier (top Singer/Songwriter), "Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton (top Hip-Hop/Rap), "Let Her Go" by Passenger (top Pop), "Prayer In C (Robin Schulz Radio Edit)" by Lilly Wood & The Prick and Robin Schulz (top Dance), "Dance Monkey" by Tones And I (most Shazamed song ever), "Mi Gente" by J Balvin and Willy William (top Latin), "All of Me" by John Legend (top R&B/Soul), and "Dance Monkey" by Tones And I (top Alternative).
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