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Chef Jams No. 22
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Chef Jams No. 22

The inaugural Shazam dump

Shyam Mervana
Feb 21, 2025
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Chef Jams No. 22
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Hey friends, it’s Chef.

Hope your years are off to a great start and, if you’re in New York (or anywhere it’s felt like a gd tundra outside for basically an eternity), I hope you’re finding ways to keep warm and get outside.

I’m back with another new Chef Jams format I’ve been wanting to try out for a minute: a Shazam dump.

Hopefully I’m not alone in admitting this, but whenever I hear a song that I can’t place—whether at a cool bar, a restaurant, a party, watching a movie, or even in my own apartment—and I need to know what it is, I definitely feel conflicted about pulling out my phone and ID’ing it with Shazam. Most of the time, I’ll play it cool and try to do it discretely. Almost every time, it’s worth it. Music has existed for as long as people have (basically) and for us to have the ability to ID any song we hear, whenever we hear it, is a blessing.

Since it was invented in the early 2000s, Shazam has primarily done one thing, identifying music, extremely well. When it was first made public, people would call an automated number (“2580,” for whoever’s curious) and let the other end of the line listen to a track for about 30 seconds. Shortly after that, the call would end, and whoever the caller would get a text message with the track details. Since then, the process has gotten even simpler—whether you’re using the app, IDing something through SnapChat, or simply asking Siri what you’re hearing—but ultimately, the benefit has stayed the same.

Not to sound jaded or cynical or whatever, but a lot of the ways we experience and react to art today can be somewhat performative, whether it’s sharing our Spotify Wrapped, logging a movie on Letterboxd, or flicking up at a fashion show to prove you were there.

Shazam, on the other hand, feels more sacred. It’s (mostly) for personal gain. It’s what you pull up when you’re having a visceral reaction to music you’re experiencing that really moves you. It’s worth it every time.

So for this Chef Jams, I and the rest of the Fab 5 are sharing songs that we’ve Shazam’d recently, along with a little bit of context on where we heard them and why we felt compelled to ID them. If you’d like to join us, please drop your recent Shazams in the comments and do the same :)

Love,

Shyam

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