“No, I like to rock and roll all night and part of every day. I usually have errands. I can only rock from like one to three.” – Role Models

Have you downloaded Soundhound yet? Go ahead, download it now, I’ll wait. . . . Done? OK.

This might come as a surprise, but SoundHound is replacing my iPad’s iPod app. That’s right, when I’m listening to my own music from my own library I’m more often opening up SoundHound rather than the iPod. SoundHound simply has more to offer.

At first I only downloaded SoundHound because I read that, like Shazam, it could identify music, but it could also identify live music, including tunes you sing or hum. Pretty cool. I warbled Breakeven by The Script into SoundHound and it knew what I was singing, even though I’m pretty sure I messed up most of the words. Impressive. The free version of SoundHound only allows 5 songs per month to identify and has small ads, upgrading to the full app is $4.99.

Once I had the app downloaded I realized it’s a lot more than a music identification app. It’s a way to discover new music and to discover more about the music you’re already listening to. Let’s look at the iPod app and the SoundHound app side by side:

At first, I thought I could never us SoundHound as a music player because the interface felt cluttered and I prefer the clean simplicity of the iPod app. But take a look at what you have access to while listening to your music library on SoundHound. You can pull up the lyrics, share what you’re listening to via Facebook or Twitter, pull up other music by the artist and buy it from iTunes, and find similar artists and songs all while the song continues to play in the background. You can also launch a Pandora station based on the song or watch the music video (or other performances of the song) via YouTube without having to leave the app. And, just like the iPod app, SoundHound will multitask, meaning you can start up a playlist and exit out of the app and the music will continue playing. I’ve even started a song in the iPod app and then opened up the SoundHound app and the music continues playing flawlessly as you switch between the two.

All this with a free app.