Music may be everywhere, but it’s not always identified. Here are some websites that can help you with those “I’m looking for a song I heard on…” moments.
The Breaks uncovers the samples from songs of today and yesteryear. Consider a program in which you play “guess the sample” by playing the original songs, or simply building a discussion by pairing contemporary hip-hop with the songs that make their melodies.
Second Hand Songs is a website focused on cover songs. Here, you’ll get a fairly comprehensive and growing database. Try a program in which teens work together to find interesting pairings (like Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails’ hurt).
When it comes to movies and television, teens have even more options. TuneFind is a great website dedicated to helping teens identify the songs they heard in their favorite movies and television shows. On the commercia tip, Squidoo’s Music from TV Commercials identifies the song and shows you the commercial in question, and AdTunes offers a searchable forum you can use to suss out questions that teens might share with the site’s users.
Edit: Tonight, I logged onto Facebook and noticed a teen was looking for a certain song that was on The L Word. I seized it as a serendipitous opportunity to test these resources. Pulling up Tunefind and searching for “The L Word” got me my answer, Freezepop’s Swimming Pool, within a minute. I then found the song through Songza (which I blogged about last week) and linked it through a comment. I couldn’t have scripted it any better, folks.
Another great site for finding the songs in commercials is splendad.com. It’s a searchable database, kinda like imdb.com.