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Business News Digital
Apple Music launches Shazam trending chart
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 21 August 2019
So it seems like Apple Music is finally doing some vaguely useful things with its Shazam acquisition (other than leaving the Shazam app to carry on as normal, which was also vaguely useful).
Having included some Shazam stat goodness in the Apple Music For Artists platform it properly put live earlier this month, the tech giant has now also launched a new playlist featuring the top 50 new artists being discovered through the Shazam platform. Not sure why it took a year to get that set up, but hey, whatever.
The Shazam Discovery Top 50 playlist will be updated weekly and promises to keep you “ahead of the curve” when it comes to new music. Which is a bold claim. Though it is true that Shazam data has always been interesting because it’s ultimately driven by people seeking to identify new music, rather than some sort of algorithm.
The first Top 50 includes artists from a fairly broad range of genres and countries, although it leans particularly towards US hip hop. In addition to this global list, it would be interesting to see country-specific charts too. Maybe that’s something Apple Music will get around to launching this time next year.
Some commentators have compared the new Shazam chart to Spotify’s Discover Weekly service. But it’s much more like the Swedish streaming firm’s Global Viral 50 chart. Though there are a number of differences even with that, in that the Spotify list is tracks not artists, it updates daily and isn’t limited to new acts.
Anyway, you can listen to (or just look at) the Shazam Discovery Top 50 playlist here.
