New technology developed by Stanford University scientists will instantly identify the artist and the track simply by placing a mobile phone close to the speaker.
Incredible as it may sound, the facility will launch this summer with a memory bank of 800,000 songs for your mobile phone to choose from.
All music fans have to do is dial a four-digit number from an ordinary mobile phone and allow the phone to grab a 15-second clip.
A few seconds later, they will receive a text message identifying the song, together with the option to save it to a list held on the web. Each request will cost 50p.
Shazam, formed two and a half years ago by the company's chief executive, Chris Barton, will launch this summer.
It works by matching up the mathematical make-up of the song with the 800,000 contained in a central database.
Because each is mathematically different, it can even differentiate between cover versions and originals and detect songs that contain samples of older songs.
So it would be able to tell the difference between Rod Stewart's version of Handbags and Gladrags and the same song by the Stereophonics.
"It's important that we have the very latest tracks in our database because it's important people feel confident using the service," said Vijay Solanki, the Shazam marketing director, who joined the company from IPC Ignite, where he
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oversaw marketing on magazines including NME and Loaded.
Mr Solanki has been working on sealing deals with record labels, shops, radio stations, magazines and television channels that want to use the service as a marketing tool.
Shazam's core market of 18 to 25-year-olds is also a lucrative but hard to reach audience for advertisers.
"We could add a note to the Shazam text message, for example, to tell you whether the track was on sale in your local HMV, when you could hear it on the radio or simply when the track was due to go on sale," he said.
The service is also launching at a good time for mobile operators and Mr Barton expects to have agreed deals with all of them by the time the service launches.
As handset sales level off, phone companies are increasingly desperate to find ways of increasing the amount each subscriber spends on services and, as they will receive almost 50% of the revenue from each Shazam request, are likely to be keen to promote it.
"There have been lots of similar services in development but none have been able to deal with background noise and the interference that is part and parcel of a mobile phone signal," said Mr Barton.
"We're extremely confident that we've found a service that meets a real need - just about everyone has a mobile phone and carries it everywhere they go." •
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