Apple-owned Shazam turns 20 with 70 billion song recognitions

Apple-owned Shazam is turning 20 years old this week, having passed 70 billion songs recognized and 225 million global users.

Over the years, Shazam has become more than just everyone’s favorite song recognition app.

Positive shared cultural moments come few and far between these days, but Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill” being featured in “Stranger Things” led to an all-time peak in Shazams of the singer, and the track going #1 on dozens of global charts.

Shazam’s global charts have played a crucial role in helping to identify new artists like Masked Wolf, who was one of Shazam’s 5 Artists to Watch in 2021 and ended up having the most Shazamed track globally that year with “Astronaut In The Ocean.”

More recently, Shazam has been adding new ways to connect artists and fans, including artist analytics and concert discovery powered by Bandsintown, which spotlights concert information and ticket info for shows nearby, simply by Shazaming a song or by searching for it in the Shazam app or website.

Shazam Milestones

Notable Firsts

• First-ever Shazamed song: “Jeepster” by T. Rex (April 19, 2002)¹

• First Shazamed song on the iOS app: “How Am I Different” by Aimee Mann (July 10, 2008)

• First track to reach 1,000 Shazams: “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” by Eminem (September 2002)

• First track to reach one million Shazams: “TiK ToK” by Ke$ha (February 2010)

• First track to reach 10 million Shazams: “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye feat. Kimbra (December 2012)

• First track to reach 20 million Shazams: “Prayer In C (Robin Schulz Radio Edit)” by Lilly Wood & The Prick and Robin Schulz (October 2015)

• First artist to hit 1 million Shazams: Lil Wayne (February 2009)

• First artist to hit 10 million Shazams: Lil Wayne (June 2011)

• First artist to hit 100 million Shazams: David Guetta (May 2015)

Fastest Tracks to Accumulate Shazams

• Fastest track to reach 1 million Shazams: “Butter” by BTS (nine days)

• Fastest track to reach 10 million Shazams: “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran (87 days)

• Fastest track to reach 20 million Shazams: “Dance Monkey” by Tones And I (219 days)

Most Shazamed of All Time

• Drake is the most Shazamed artist of all time with over 350 million Shazams across songs the artist has led or featured on. “One Dance” is Drake’s most popular track at over 17 million Shazams.

• “Dance Monkey” by Tones And I is the most Shazamed song ever with over 41 million Shazams.

• “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley was the most Shazamed song using the “2580” text service.

Top Shazamed Songs by Genre

• Top Hip-Hop/Rap: “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton

• Top Dance: “Prayer In C (Robin Schulz Radio Edit)” by Lilly Wood & The Prick and Robin Schulz

• Top R&B/Soul: “All of Me” by John Legend

• Top Latin: “Mi Gente” by J Balvin and Willy William

• Top Pop: “Let Her Go” by Passenger

• Top Alternative: “Dance Monkey” by Tones And I

• Top Singer/Songwriter: “Take Me to Church” by Hozier

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.