SoundHound Review

Category: Travel
Cost/Platforms: Free on Android and Apple devices.

Overall Rating:
Multiplatform:
Lots of function for nothing:
Fun and easy to use:
Solves a real travel need or challenge:

Identify songs you hear anywhere.

Why we like it -- It's a bit of smartphone magic: Hold your phone in the direction of a speaker or a performer, and this app will tell you what's playing. The app, which is especially great for car rides, cafes or bars, keeps a list of every song you've identified, and you can buy songs or find lyrics with one click.

SoundHound also includes music charts, made up of songs most frequently identified by other users of the app, so it's a great way to find new music. You need a network connection for immediate results, but if you're in a foreign market and you don't want to swallow data charges, you can search while in offline mode, and the app will retrieve the song name later when you connect.

Improvements we'd like to see -- The app will help you identify foreign-language hits, but until SoundHound improves its global music database, it will miss the more obscure tunes.

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