It really is a marvel in its simplicity and reliance on "older" concepts (frequency transforms, hashing, etc.) as opposed to any crazy ML (AFAIK) -- surprisingl

It really is a marvel in its simplicity and reliance on "older" concepts (frequency transforms, hashing, etc.) as opposed to any crazy ML (AFAIK) -- surprisingly not that cutting edge. And I'm not knocking that / there's nothing wrong with the age of a technique. If it's useful, it's useful. It's incredible. It's a perfect example of bringing together several previously somewhat disparate domains of math with just the right application and an Internet-connected smartphone. In that regard, it's a bit crazy to think that the math to enable Shazam has probably been around for...several decades? Just took a stroke of ingenuity to bring it all together.