For two decades, Shazam, Apple’s music discovery platform has changed the way people engage with music by making song identification accessible to its global audience.
As the app celebrates its 20th anniversary, it’s taking a trip down memory lane with a special playlist comprised of the most Shazamed song of each calendar year for the past 20 years.
Among them appear BTS, whose hit single “Butter” became the fastest track to reach 1 million shazams after only nine days, and Drake, who has been named the most Shazamed artist of all time with over 350 million Shazams across songs as both a lead and featured artist.
Among the top Shazam’s songs by category appear J Balvin and Willy William in Latin for “Mi Gente,” Hozier in singer/songwriter for “Take Me To Church,” Tones And I in alternative for “Dance Money,” John Legend in R&B for “All of Me,” and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis with Ray Dalton in hip-hop/rap for “Can’t Hold Us.”
Keeping its finger on the pulse of music, the music discovery platform has also played a major role in bringing local artists to a global audience through music discovery. For example, the longest-running global No. 1 song of 2021 that was Shazamed on the platform was “Love Nwantiti (Remix)” by Nigerian artist CKay. The track also became the second song to ever surpass 1 million Shazams in a week.
“Shazam has played an impactful role in my career. It allowed millions of people all over the world to discover me and my unique Nigerian sound,” CKay said in a press statement. “It made me a global sensation even before I started to perform all over the world. The story of CKay cannot be told without it connecting me to the world.”
With its continued commitment to innovation over the past two decades, Shazam is pioneering new ways to bring fans closer to the music and artists they love with new tools like the concert discovery feature, which spotlights concert information and tickets on sale for shows nearby, simply by Shazaming a song, or by searching for it in the app or website.
Shazam’s playlist is available to listen to exclusively on Apple Music here.
