Surely by now you’ve heard of Wordle, the viral, New York Times-acquired word game that’s given the internet a case of green and yellow block chicken pox in recent months. The game’s runaway success has had one particularly entertaining ripple effect: Dozens of developers have put their own spins on the game, from Quordle (which is just four simultaneous Wordles) and Worldle (Wordle for geography) to Nerdle (Wordle for math, which, yuck) and Lewdle (the profane joys of which we’ll let you discover on your own). The latest addition to that list is of particular interest to us here in the Music section: Heardle, Wordle for songs.
Heardle’s website describes the game as “a respectful homage to Wordle, with a musical twist,” and developers Omakase note, “Much love (and all the relevant copyright) to all the artists featured.” Each day, Heardle picks a random track from “a list of the most streamed songs in the past decade” (via SoundCloud, the game’s “About” page specifies), giving you six guesses to identify the tune. Initially, you can only hear the song’s first second, but as you guess incorrectly (or simply pass by hitting “Skip”), more and more of the track audio is uncovered, up to the song’s first 16 seconds. Identify the song within six tries and victory is yours—or don’t, and feel the agony of defeat, at least until tomorrow’s Heardle.
You can play Heardle right here to test your human Shazam skills. Just don’t post your scores. No one needs to see those.
