Shazam has a competitor now in SoundHound. SoundHound seems to simply do a better job matching music.

In my first test, it matched a classical recording from an FM broadcast playing on an alarm clock. And it wasn't exactly something super well-known, either: Haydn's Cello Concerto No. 2 in D. (Verified on the station's web site.) It made this match surprisingly quickly; about half the time that Shazam usually takes. Shazam failed to identify the recording.

In my second test, I sang "Amazing Grace" at it. It identified it right away. Shazam not only doesn't claim to do this, but actively says it can't.

In my third test, I sang "Back in the USSR" at it. I only halfway remembered how it went, though I did look up the lyrics. The first time it failed, the second time it got it.

The only drawbacks to Soundhound I can see are: the app size is much larger, something like 4.3MB vs. 1.8MB; Soundhound only does five free matches per month, which is actually true of Shazam, too, unless you'd already used it more than a few months ago when they changed their policy; and Shazam has an Intent to launch directly into the match (which means I can set an icon to do that on LauncherPro), whereas SoundHound doesn't seem to.

Anyway, I'm very impressed with Soundhound. Given that I still have unlimited searches with Shazam, I seldom, if ever, need to match classical music or songs that I want to hum, Shazam allows me to launch the matching much faster, and I kinda need the space back, I'm going to stick with Shazam. But Soundhound is a very strong competitor.