Apple Music’s New ‘Shazam Discovery’ Playlist Features Songs From Up-And-Coming Artists

Apple Music, according to a report by Tech Crunch, has launched a new featured playlist that leverages data from its Shazam music recognition application. This playlist, titled Shazam Discovery, highlights 50 up-and-coming songs from breaking artists and will be updated weekly. The new playlist is live under the Browse tab of Apple Music. Currently, some of the top featured tracks are from Ohana Bam, A$ton Wyld, Tones and I, and Regard. Apple Music describes the new playlist as follows:

Want to be ahead of the curve? The global Shazam Discovery Top 50, powered by Shazams from around the world and updated once a week, complies up-and-coming songs from breaking artists. If you hear a song you like, add it to your library.

How Will It Work?

Apple's Shazam app has been downloaded a billion times. It gets 20 million 'Shazams' per day (the number of times a user pushes the button to identify a song that’s playing). These Shazams will now be used to identify tracks that are expected to be a breakout. This is a different type of a measurement as compared to traditional music chart.Shazam Discovery is not a reference to how many downloads, purchases or streams a song has; instead, it provides insights into recognizing up-and-coming artists. Shazam Discovery will include a variety of songs as the playlist keeps getting updated. Majority of these songs will be by emerging artists (except when a song may experience a burst of momentum). To rank on the playlist, the song should be demonstrating a pattern of moving quickly through Shazam’s charts, or it should be growing geographically, the company says.

Apple On the New Playlist

Apple noted that shared attributes of the songs on the playlist include growing quickly as well as growing geographically.

All are experiencing a level of momentum indicative of future potential of hitting the top of Shazam’s Charts, and show any or all of the following patterns: moving quickly through Shazam’s charts, growing rapidly, steadily and/or geographically.

Speaking to Variety, Apple didn’t share exactly how its music recognition data is calculating the new playlist, but said that it uses "Shazam’s proprietary algorithms [to offer] a unique predictive view on rising artists and reacting tracks to Apple Music subscribers". The new Apple Music chart will feature songs that are trending in the U.S. and more than 10 other countries.

Shazam's Entry Into Streaming

This isn’t the first time that Shazam is foraying into the music charts. You’ll find Shazam online offers a Top 200 chart for the U.S. and various other countries. Shazam also has a Global Top Chart in addition to a 10-song 'Discovery' chart for the U.S. and various other markets. Check out the new Shazam Discovery playlist on Apple Music here.