Apple celebrates Shazam's 20th birthday -- listen to the most Shazamed songs from the past two decades here
I regularly use Shazam to identify songs playing when I’m out and about. It has helped me to discover a number of lesser known artists over the years who have gone on to become firm favorites of mine.
Today, Shazam turns 20 and Apple says the service, which it acquired back in 2018, has now surpassed 70 billion song recognitions. To mark this major milestone, Apple has produced a special playlist of the most Shazamed songs of each calendar year for the past 20 years, and you can listen to them right here.
Apple also reveals that the first ever Shazamed song was Jeepster by T-Rex on April 19, 2002, and the first track to reach 1 million Shazams was TiK ToK by Ke$ha (February 2010). The fastest track to reach 1 million Shazams was Butter by BTS. It took nine days.
And if you’re curious as to who the most Shazamed artist of all time is, the answer is Drake with over 350 million Shazams across his catalogue. The most Shazamed song ever is Dance Monkey by Tones And I with over 41 million Shazams.
Apple also lists the following notable milesetones for the service:
- August 2002: Shazam launches as a text message service based in the UK. At the time, users could identify songs by dialing "2580" on their phone and holding it up as a song played. They were then sent an SMS message telling them the song title and the name of the artist.
- July 2008: Shazam launches on the brand-new App Store. Shazam later launched its Android version in October 2008.
- April 2015: Shazam becomes available on the first Apple Watch.
- September 2018: Shazam joins the Apple family.
- June 2021: Shazam surpasses 1 billion Shazams per month.
- May 2022: Shazam surpasses 2 billion lifetime installs.
- August 2022: Shazam celebrates 20 years of music discovery and hits 70 billion all-time Shazams.
You can listen to 20 Years of Shazam Hits below, or here.