Reviews for SoundHound - Music Discovery

I've used this app on and off for 5 years and the usage has been tumultuous to say the least. Song recognition would NEVER work the first time I used it, it would always take two tries to recognize songs. Further it would only be able to recognize about 60% of the songs (mostly popular songs), no covers or smaller indie bands (which would be REALLY useful). Pros: mostly the auto lyrics is a fun gimmick but ultimately unnecessary. The album and artist info was also useful too.

What in the world is going on?! I'm not going to say I used to love this app; I still do! BUT, rough patch!! The ability to identify songs is back for me. The history is still good to go. I add every song to a playlist on Spotify so I can keep listening and it won't let me log into Spotify. This feature had me sprung! On a pixel 8, so hardware and software shouldn't be an issue. This app is cool; totally would pay for a premium if reasonably priced. Never liked shazam; please fix this.

Massive loss of features. I used to use the History section of the app to listen to a mix of music I've liked. I was able to go full screen on videos, mix the playlist, skip to the next song, etc. Now, it just opens the video in a small screen with the option to pause/play the video. This used to be a 5 star app, but the changes they've made on the last couple of updates have made it horrible. I no longer use this app for playing music, only for identifying unknown songs.

Soundhound used to be awesome. It would detect songs quickly, with minimal effort, wherever you were. Recently, I have been noticing that even in the car, putting the phone next to the speaker, at high volume, it gives you the "We Couldn't Find This One". I understand a few times, but not every single time. It sucks because I loved this app and was amazed that even in a loud bar, like Flanigan's, it use to be able to detect the song within seconds.

I have used SoundHound forever and never had a major issue. Lately, however, it doesn't find ANYTHING....I did a side by side comparison with a known song (Bangarang by Skrillex). SoundHound couldn't find it; Shazam found it in less than a second. a second test (Killshot by Eminem) produced identical results. One star for now until the issue is fixed.

So I have the same issue as others of songs not being found. I suspect it's the video ads they play during song detection. despite the ad being muted I think the app is picking up the audio(or lack there of) from the video ad and ignoring the phones microphone input. it works when the ad isn't a video one. too bad you can't close the ad a the x for the ads are fake. going to find an alternative app now.

I've used this app for years, probably going on 8-9 years of using this app exclusively for music recognition. The past several months It hasn't been able to recognize any songs, even more popular songs. I can have my phone right next to the speaker and the volume turned way up and it still will act like it didn't hear a thing. I have had issues like this in the past but normally could retry it and it would work, but now it doesn't work at all. Extremely disappointed in this app.

Something Went Wrong Something Else Matters. I was trying to identify the artist playing a piano version of Nothing Else Matters, but this app failed with multiple trys. I even raised the volume up on my stereo, it was loud enough that the neighbors could hear - 5 acres over our forested property. It kept saying, "Is something playing?" I switched over to Shazam, and it took less than a second. This used to be my goto app to identify music, now it appears to be of no matter.

This app used to be great, but it's gotten bloated and bogged down with non-optional extras, and now the damn thing is sending push notifications with no option to turn them off at the app level. Updated 9/7/25: The app no longer works at all. It hasn't ID'd a song in months. And it looks like it's becoming just another LLM company? Negative ten stars, honestly. Useless app

Every song now plays 30 sec previews even when my option clearly has full length checked. What happened to the full length playback? Update came through 4.30.25. Now some albums cause the app to close when you try to open and play. And on most that start playing one or two songs stop at any point of the song and the app crashes. What a disappointment this app has become. Songs that played in full the past are reduced to 30sec even though full version setting is the default playback mode.

I went in with a few songs I thought it should be able to identify, going from hardest to easiest. 1st, I had hummed the song "Tom's Diner" - despite how simple it is, a lot of tools have trouble with it, this includes. I then tried singing something niche, "Dim Sum Paradise" by OCT, and it incorrectly identified the song as 99 Luftballoons by Nena, which is German. Lastly, I tried All Star by Smash Mouth - a very iconic song - and it got zero hits. Find a different tool - Midomi might be good.

Soundhound = trash app Soundhound rarely works. Sometimes it works fast but usually it takes too long to open and often just flat out doesn't work to hear a song. You'll see a message, "Is this singing or humming?" It's a waste of time and failed me on 2 different phones, a Pixel 6 Pro and now on a Motorola Edge (2023). Don't waste your time.

7/24/25- App used to work great. For the past year now it's not recognizing any songs. Not even well known hits. It doesn't even recognize "Evil Woman" by Black Sabbath and that song came out in 1970!! It just says "searching". Very disappointing and the devs don't appear interested in making any improvements at all!!

Used to be a great app...I had to start using another app because this one can't find the most basic song anymore. I thought it was a glitch or something, but it's been going on for probably a year now. No update available at this time, so I'm deleting the app and using Shazam, which also hasn't been as stellar as it used to be. Last time I used Google with the microphone.

Used this app for many years. Like all things that start out awesome, they had to go and change something in the programming and now it wont identify much at all. Even songs on the radio that have been played for the last 20 years, it doesn't recognize it. Thanks soundhound for following the trend of screwing up what was once a good app. Ill be switching to something else.

I've had this app for years, and when it works, it works great! I can save songs to check out later, it gives me lyrics, and it's just a helpful tool. But the past year or so it hasn't been helpful at all. It can't identify any song I play, no matter how mainstream it is or how clear the audio it's listening to. I don't want to get rid of it since it used to be really good, but some changes need made.

This app is awesome. It quickly identifies any playing songs and it also finds lyrics for many of them. It also keeps a record of songs so I can remember them later if I want to download them or buy them. (I used to rate this a 5, but lately I've found a lot of music it doesnt recognize so I've downgraded it - it's a shame because it was my goto for YEARS. Everything changes. Hopefully they will fix this issue and I can rate it a 5 again. Nothing would make me happier.)

Widget doesn't auto start song search. I don't know how long ago this started happening, but hitting the ID Now widget, I would then have to re-hit the button to ID the playing song. Before, Hitting the widget would automatically start the search. It's very annoying especially when you can tell the song is about to end soon. Other than that, I love SoundHound. I've been using it for years discovering so many new genres to flesh out my library.

Inconsistent. Over half the time it will say "dusting off the records" for seemingly forever, and never give an indication that it's trying... and its not a connection thing because the ads sure work just fine. The app worked really well until the last several updates. Now it maybe works 1 out of 3 times. I am looking into other apps now.

Searching lyrics names or anything using text never works and it rarely recognizes audio even when it's clear as day to super popular music. I can hold it with the stereo playing the top 40 and it will be lucky to recognize 3 of them. Whatever the glitch is it just doesn't ever work right... shame cause for a decade or so it was my go to for figuring out songs... Now, just a bad app