What Song Is This? 10 of Best Apps and Websites to Identify Songs (2024)

It happens to everybody at some point in their life. You hear a catchy song in a bar or a club or on a radio, and you desperately want to know what it is. You go humming the sound in your mind for days until you remeet somewhere. 

Luckily, there are many music recognition apps today which can help you track down the song you are searching for. They use the microphones of the smart device to take a sample of the song to scan their databases of millions of songs in order to find the one you are looking for. 

In a short time, they deliver the name of the song, artist, album, plus lyrics along with other information about the song. Let’s check out the best music recognition apps with their unique features.

1. Shazam

Android, iOS App – Free

Shazam is arguably the most famous music recognition app today. The app works on Android as well as iOS devices and is entirely free. 

It has a highly intuitive user interface where you just press the button in the app to track down the desired song. The app also has an automatic mode in which Shazam listens to every song played around you to ID and take records.

After matching the song playing in a few seconds, the app shows all the info about the song, including the name of the song and artist, its lyrics, a preview, along with the option to include the song in Spotify playlists.

2. SoundHound

Android, iOS App – Free with paid option: SoundHound Infinite

SoundHound is another popular music recognition app that is suitable for Android and iOS devices. Although the app is free, you have to pay and upgrade to SoundHound Infinite if you want to get rid of the ads.

With SoundHound, you can identify the songs playing around you as Shazam does, or you can basically hum the song to find it. There is also an option where you can type in the lyrics, and the app tracks down the tune for you.

After finding the song, the app shows some info about the song, including the artist and album name, lyrics, links to the song in Spotify and Youtube, along with the album artwork. It also has a discovery engine based on your tracking history.

3. MusixMatch

Android, iOS App – Free with paid option: Premium Subscription

MusixMatch is a well-known lyrics recognition app that delivers you the lyrics of the song playing around you. It is a free app, compatible both with Android and iOS devices.

The app successfully identifies the song playing around you or on your phone and brings you the lyrics for you to read, sing or save it for later.

There is the premium subscription option which is ad-free and has some extra features such as downloading lyrics for offline use.

4. Genius

Android, iOS App – Free

Along with a feed loaded with music news, articles, videos, and interviews, Genius has a great song recognition feature. The app works both on Android and iOS devices and is entirely free.

Just by pressing the identify button, you can make the app quickly listen to and identify the song playing around you. The app brings you full details of the album, artist, and lyrics along with a Youtube link to the song and album.

Overall, it is a great app for music lovers with its all-together music model with news, articles, and videos instead of a single-function recognition app.

5. Midomi

Website – Free

Allowing you to find any song by voice search, Midomi works with the same principle as SoundHound. The difference is that Midomi is not an app but a free website, which you can reach with your computers as well as smart devices.

You can hum the song to the mic of your device, and the website will immediately find the song for you. Plus, it has a high accuracy rate. Furthermore, it allows you to see the people who searched for the same songs as you did, allowing you to connect with them by sending messages.

You don’t have to sing well or in tune for Midomi to realize which song it is, so don’t worry. Just sing or hum the melody without care, and that is enough!

6. AHA Music

Website – Free

Another great website to recognize the songs playing is AHA Music. The website offers Chrome and Edge extensions for ease of use and uses the robust database of ACRCloud for quick and accurate song recognition.

The website works well both on computers and smart devices. Furthermore, it supports song recognition even with humming or singing. It is an entirely free website and is relatively easy to use.

7. Beatfind Music Recognition 

Android App – Free

Beatfind is a straightforward music recognition app for Android devices. It has a very simplistic interface with just a “listen” button to which you press when you want to find the information of the song playing around you. The app is entirely free but is compatible only with Android devices.

Beatfind uses the ACRCloud collection to identify the song and delivers you information about the song along with links to Spotify, Youtube for the option of listening to the whole song. It also keeps track of the songs you identified in the history section.

The only bad part about Beatfind is that it is an ad-supported app in which you will have to watch some pop-up video ads.

8. Google Assistant

Android, iOS App – Free

One of the hundreds of uses of the Google Assistant app is music recognition. You can tap the mic icon on the Google Search widget or open the app and ask, “what’s this song?” before starting to hum the song. It will quickly find the most likely matches.

The app is present on iOS and Android devices and is completely free. However, the iOS version supports only English songs, while the Android version supports more than 20 languages.

9. MusicID

Android, iOS App – Free

Musc ID is a simplistic music ID app compatible both with Android and iOS devices. You can either hold up your smartphone until it grabs the sample of the song, or you can type in some parts of the lyrics for the app to recognize the tune.

The app also has some extra features for music enthusiasts, such as watching YouTube music videos, looking up artist biographies, and finding similar-sounding tracks.

10. AudioTag

Website – Free

The last music recognition service on the list is AudioTag which is a website where you can upload an audio clip or provide the URL of the song in order to find the desired song. It is an entirely free website with a basic interface.

The website allows you to upload clips from 15 to 45 seconds. The robot quickly finds the song for you and provides information about the name of the song, the artist, and the album. You can upload audio files in any format from .mp3 to .wav. It does not matter if it is a part of the song downloaded from somewhere or a self-recorded one.

Conclusion

With all of these music recognition apps or websites, you can find the song stuck in your mind easily and quickly. It does not matter if you remember just a few phrases in the lyrics or a part in the melody, or you just have a short audio recording of the song. Depending on your device and needs, you can use any of these services to identify the song you need.