FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Each emoji is defined by Unicode. For instance the emoji "Grinning Face" has the code U+1F600. Vendors such as Apple, Google or Twitter developed their own graphical emojis that replace the code with the corresponding emoji, comparable to a typeset or font. Therefore the same emojis look different on various operating systems or applications.

Unicode.org provides a chart of all Unicode emojis and their occurrence by vendor/application.

Emoji-Songs.com uses emojis of the open source project Twitter Emoji (Twemoji). In comparison to Apple's emojis, which are also used by WhatsApp, they can be used without any special licence agreement.

Further reading:
Emojipedia: Apple's Emoji Crackdown
Emojipedia: Licensing
Plagiarism Today: Copyright and Emoji
WIPO Magazine: Emojis and intellectual property law

In general, using an emoji character set ensures that emojis look the same on all operating systems and browsers. Another advantage of Twitter Emoji is that Twitter is one of the first services to provide new emojis.

By the way: Since October 23, 2017, WhatsApp for Android (version 2.17.386 and above) uses its own Apple-like emojis.

The word "emojigram" is a combination of emoji and the greek word gramma (γράμμα) which means letter, writing, something written. The neologism is similar to terms like telegram, autogram, hologram, Instagram and others. Regarding the meaning of Emoji see the article on Wikipedia.

Emoji-Songs.com originates from a private quiz played by two participants beginning in February 2016. The aim of the quiz was to guess song titles by emojis via WhatsApp. As an amount of about 300 emojigrams was reached the idea came up to publish them online in a cataloged way including links to Wikipedia and YouTube. The directory should also offer a possibility to guess song titles by emojis. [...] Apart from own new creations that are regularly added, visitors are invited to contribute emojigrams of song titles missing in the directory. The website is a spare time project.

The number of Spanish, Portuguese, French or Italian songs – all were international hits – is below 50. For this reason there's no need for an extra category.

There are various ways to depict song titles by emojis. It depends on the song title and sometimes on the direction particular emojis show.

Normally emojigrams are read from left to right:

👼🏻👁👁
Angel Eyes

Some song titles can also be depicted as a complete image:

🏁 🚴🏻‍♂️ 🚴🏻‍♂️ 🚴🏻‍♂️
Bicycle Race


or in a comics style by placing thought bubbles or others above the corresponding emoji:

💭
👤
In My Head


Actually there are no rules. It's all about trying to depict a song title by emojis in an appropriate and comprehensible way. Just use your emojination! Each emojigram on Emoji-Songs.com is only one possible way to depict a certain song title by emojis. In case a depiction is very obvious, the artist is still to be guessed.

The links to Wikipedia are meant for further reading about a song or artist. In most cases an article about a particular song exists on Wikipedia. If there is no article about a song the order of how the link targets are chosen is: The album the song was released on, the artist's discography, the artist (if information about the song is provided). If there's no relevant link target at all, the link to Wikipedia is omitted.

The articles about particular songs on Wikipedia often refer to the single release of a song. The year specified on Emoji-Songs.com is always the year of the first release (on an album, as a single prior to the album or as an online release). There are for instance songs that were released on an album in November, the single however was released in the following year and charted. In these cases the year of publication is the year the album was released, not the single.

In case you don't know a song or like to hear it, simply click the button "YouTube". This starts a search for the song on YouTube (song title and artist). You can choose from the result list what version of the song you want to see or hear. There are no static links to personally favored videos.

Some entries contain cover versions or the original version of a song. Providing this information you get to know that some songs or harmonies are originally not by the artist they are often associated with. As far as cover versions are concerned only some notable ones are listed (without any claim of completeness). This is meant to increase recognition, because some songs' cover versions were/are more successfull than the original version. For some songs there are so many cover versions that they can't be listed all on Emoji-Songs.com. Besides the articles on Wikipedia often name numerous cover versions.

When playing a Random Quiz the order of the songs changes every 24 hours at midnight CET (Central European Time).