It’s always frustrating when you hear a song worth saving, but its name and artist remain a mystery. Fortunately, with the SoundHound app, you can identify any song with the touch of a button, discover new music, learn about your favorite artists, and get easy access to music videos, lyrics and more.
Identifying a Song
This is what you’ll first see upon opening the app. To identify a song that’s playing, simply press on the orange button so that SoundHound can start “listening” to the surrounding audio. Alternatively, if there’s an unknown tune you can’t seem to get out of your head, SoundHound can also identify songs by singing and humming.
If singing to your phone doesn’t fancy you, SoundHound also has a handy search bar where you can search for a song by name, artist, or any lyrics you may remember. Basically, if there’s at least one thing you remember about the song you’re trying to find, SoundHound can help you identify it.
Once SoundHound identifies the song, a page will open with its name and artist, along with other useful information like its album, release date, music video and full lyrics. If you decide you want to save the song, you can tap the “plus” icon to add it to the SoundHound playlist linked to your Spotify account, or tap the “star” icon to save it as one of your SoundHound favorites.
Checking Out An Artist
To learn more about an artist, simply tap their name on the song page, or put their name into SoundHound’s search bar.
The artist profile provides a great overview of their top songs, previous albums, and recent social media activity, all in one place. You can also read some interesting personal information, such as their age, place of origin, and biography. There’s even an option to check out tickets for upcoming tour dates.
Looking At Your Search History and Favorites
If you identified a song but forgot to save or favorite it, don’t worry — it’s all there in your search history. You’ll be able to look back at what song you searched, on what date, and at what time. To access your search history, simply tap the “book” icon in the top left corner of SoundHound’s home page. You can also access your previously favorited songs here.
One subtle feature I really appreciate about SoundHound is the “pending searches” list, which you can find on your history page as well. It’s basically a list of recordings that SoundHound automatically saves when it’s unable to identify a song due to a poor internet connection, loss of service, or any other complication your phone might encounter. So let’s say that your phone has no signal, but you hear a song that might just be your new favorite. You can still tap SoundHound’s big orange button, and even if it can’t identify that song at the moment, you can go to your “pending searches” to play back the audio when you have a better connection so that SoundHound can try to identify the song again.
Discovering New Music
Next to the history icon on SoundHound’s home page, you’ll see an icon that looks like a bar graph. This is SoundHound’s charts page, where you can discover all sorts of new music. They have a section where you can see the hottest in new music, across the county, the continent, and the world. You can also see what’s new in a specific music genre, as well as trending music videos and artists born on this day. If you see a song you want to listen to, simply tap on it and enjoy.
Music Map and In-App Music Player
The last two pages you can access from SoundHound’s home page are the music map and music player. I personally use these two features very rarely. The music map is to supposedly explore what’s being played near you and around you — if you tap on the cover art, it will take you to the song’s page. But it’s a bit of a mystery as to why certain songs show up in certain areas on the map — are they being played by other SoundHound users? We don’t really know.
SoundHound’s music player simply lets you play your own music through the app. You can choose to play from your search history, SoundHound’s charts, favorited songs, or iPhone library. However, it doesn’t really offer anything new or different compared your iPhone’s standard music player, or whatever other app you may use to play music.
Conclusions
Overall, I absolutely love SoundHound. I downloaded it years ago, and have been using it weekly ever since. It’s practically indispensable. Its ability to quickly identify music is spectacularly handy, especially when you’re listening to the radio or hear a good song come on in a restaurant. It also comes with a number of great features that enable you to learn more about the songs and artists you love, keep up with the latest music videos, sing along to the lyrics and discover new music when you’re tired of hearing the same thing. If you’re a music lover, SoundHound has everything you need all in one organized, easy-to-navigate place.