I was a different person a week ago. Just one week ago, I had never heard of Shazam. If you don't know what I'm talking about, be prepared, because you're going to love it too.
Say you hear a song you like in a bar, a shop, on TV, wherever, but you don't know what it is: what do you do? Somehow it's never the right moment to accost a sales assistant and demand to see the stereo. Until last Friday, I would have just shrugged and gone about my business, with perhaps a fusty ponder on how anybody knows about Fragrant Apex by Karburetta or whatever the thing's called.
Never again. Now, I reach for my mobile, call 2580 (that's all the buttons down the middle), let the phone have a good clear listen, and wait until the call ends itself (about 30 seconds). Moments later, I get a text telling me the name of the song, the artist and even which remix it is.
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Punch air. Feel good.
It won't do live or classical music (yet), or my singing (ever), but I still haven't found anything else it doesn't know, including the twiddly bits in jazz. If someone can think of a better use of 60p, I'd like to hear about it.
Shazam, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... erm... three. One, you find me the songs I like; two, you impress the socks off people who've never heard of you; three, you are such a brilliantly simple idea that you show up video-messaging as the pushy gimmick that it is.
So next time you see someone in a bar holding their phone in the air, feel secure in the knowledge that they don't know what the song's called either. And in the meantime, in case you don't believe me, put a CD on and give it a try •
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