New Phone Service Promises to ID Songs

Coolnat2004 writes "Ever get a song stuck in your head, but you missed the DJ announcement of the song name? That's the idea powering a new cell phone-based service called 411-SONG. Just call 866-411-SONG, and hold your phone up to the speaker. 15 seconds later the call ends and the information on your song is displayed on your phone's screen. This comes at a price, though. 99 cents for your first 5 songs, and then 99 cents a song after that. However, nbc4.com reports that a subscription model may be coming soon. Wouldn't this technology be great for fixing up all those ID3 tags?"

Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

So... now it costs as much to figure out what a song is as to buy it? No thanks.

Old news

[Guspaz]

There have been services like this around for years. When I got a new cell phone a few months ago it came with advertising for just such a service, and I had heard about such services ages before that.

Think of the marketing possiblities

[davidwr]

Think of the *insertevilnesslevelhere* possibities.

They know your phone #, they know what song you are listening to, the probably know what radio station is playing the song, and they can find out your address and probably your name.

If they don't have a good privacy policy, I won't be using their service.

XM Radio

[taped2thedesk]

For $13 a month, I'll just stick to XM Radio... it shows me the title and artist of the song I'm listening to. It can even record that info so that I can go back to it later and buy the song or album when I get home. Sure, it won't identify arbitrary music (just the song currently playing on the tuned station), but it seems like the only time I try to figure out the name of a song is when I'm listening to it on the radio.

Fixing ID3 Tags

[Gamzarme]

Wouldn't this technology be great for fixing up all those ID3 tags?"

Well, another great way to accomplish this is to just have one piece of information, such as the artists name or song name, or even album and type it into Google. But if you are really desperate, you can just Google the lyrics or a catch phrase in the lyrics. It's simple, really.

Only for popular songs. Bah-Humbug!

[SeaFox]

While a service like this is truly incredible, as people from the UK (who have had it for a few years) have pointed out, these services usually only work on "popular" songs. Songs that probably get played twenty times a day on U.S. top-40 radio, with oppertunities to find out the name quite often.

The branches of music this would be most useful for (Indie Rock, Electronic, Jazz and Classical) are unfortunately the ones the system will rarely recognize.

cheap solution

[jeffy124]

easy and free: figure out a few words in sequence, enter them into google using quotes, add the word lyrics outside teh quotes, and you can usually get the full song info quite easily.

if the song is stuck in your head, lyrics should be little trouble

Huh...

[Teja]

I know this may sound redundant but wouldn't it be much easier to just GOOGLE the lyrics of the song and wait for results? While you may not always be near a computer with internet access (well with more and more cell phones offering internet access, it is much easier) that maybe the time where that service come useful for one.

a couple of things....

[yagu]

A couple of things: (I actually had been thinking about this service the other day -- I had seen it demo'ed on TV quite a while ago. I thought it was interesting and had just been wondering what had happened to the concept. I never missed it, just thought it was interesting, for a couple of reasons:

• I tried to think how many times I've encountered just that need to identify a song -- turns out, at least for me, not that many. I do have a good ear and memory for music, but I can only think of once or twice in my life where I really felt the NEED to have this kind of service. I wouldn't pay anything for it regardless.
• Do we really need yet another distraction from driving? While I can sympathize with most cellphone users it becomes almost (almost!) a necessary evil to occasionally talk on a cellphone while driving (though I do think it a bit over used and abused and probably has contributed to an accident or two), I cringe at the thought of people fumbling for their phone not only to dial up and "use" this service, but to do it under the auspices of a deadline, i.e., before the song ends on the radio. I think this just asks for trouble!
• How accurate can this really be? The demo I saw was impressive, but for the songs I need ID'ed, they are much more obscure and the stats and performance of the demo I saw (let me emphasize I'm not totally positive it was one and the same as referenced here, but how many of these can there be?) the accuracy was good for most, but fell a bit for the less mainstream stuff -- which is the stuff I need ID's for.
• How good is it for: Jazz; Classical; ID'ing specific rendition of a song (cover vs. original recording)?

Bottom line for me -- I don't need it.... Sometimes I feel like we're turning into a world that's a microwave oven with 100 power level settings! And just how many power level settings do we really need to live healthy, productive, and fulfilling lives?

Re:Huh...

[Anonymous Coward]

> I know this may sound redundant but wouldn't it be much easier to just GOOGLE the lyrics of the song and wait for results?

Doesn't seem to work with my Dave Brubeck CD's, strangely enough...

Just and idea...

[krin]

Instead of paying a buck to figure out the name of the song you just heard on the radio.. you could try calling the station and asking. I have called a local station a few times in the past and they've been more then happy to tell me the name of a song they just played.

You could try their website as well, a lot of stations are putting their playlists up on their sites now; as long as you have a good idea of when the song was played it should not be to hard to figure it out.

And of course as others have mentioned, the almighty Google.
I just can not see anyone paying a buck to figure out a song title.

Re:Uh

[AstroDrabb]

Hmm. Most major online music "stores" out in the wild allow you to do a very cool thing called search. So if you knew even a small part of the lyrics, you should be OK. Also, most of the major online music stores are taking a hint from Amazon. They are looking at your past purchases and recommending content. IMO, Amazon, has been on-the-money. Every book that Amazon has recommended to me, has been somthing I have wanted and as such, have purchased.

Re:Uh

[tepples]

You must listen to a lot of instrumental music. What I do for vocal music stations is just listen closely to the lyrics and then type key phrases into Google.

Re:Uh

[rluberti]

for me is already crazy to see people pay for ring tones.....same people will probably use that service... I guess after knowing the music name...the same service will try to seel you the ring tone...

Re:Uh

[dolmen.fr]

So if you knew even a small part of the lyrics, you should be OK

This service works also if the music has no lyrics.

Most major online music "stores" out in the wild [...]

Thanks to this service you don't have to be online to get the title of a song. So it should work instantly everywhere you hear music: in a night club, in a "old world" music store, in a train station or with your TV.