-
Legaltorrents
is still in its early stages,
but there are still a number of
music and audio books available
from their site.
-
Stereogum has
been offering free, legal mp3s
since 2006. They're all still
available, along with zip and
torrent file archives of
previous months. The Gum Mix
streams music to you while you
browse, and all the tracks it
plays can be downloaded.
-
SXSW is a good
news/bad news situation. The bad
news is, they only have one
torrent file for download. The
good news? It contains over 700
mp3s of bands that performed in
2007 for a whopping total of 3.1
gigs of audio. Change the year
in the subdomain to get the 2006
and 2005 downloads.
-
Unsigned Band Web
is a palce for, well, unsigned
bands to share their music and
get noticed. Just about every
genre you can imagine is offered
here, and they maintain charts
to show you what's hot.
Apparently electronica is hot.
Maybe I'll stick to genre
browsing. Bottom line: tons of
free mp3s to download.
-
Soundclick's music page
will hook you up with a ton of
downloads, including more
unsigned acts - like my favorite
new addiction: German hip hop. I
blame my scarf-wearing
co-worker.
-
Honc "if you
love music. The site isn't much
to look at, but there's still
more undiscovered goodness to be
found here.
-
Garage Band is
also worth checking out for more
diamonds in the rough. Rub it in
your friends' faces that you
"heard them first."
-
Indie Rock Cafe
offers more up-ad-coming music,
blog style. There's no
centralized download page, so
you'll find the tracks sprinkled
around the blog post.
-
DMusic has
been offering indie musicians a
chance to be heard since 1998.
Top 20 charts are maintained for
each of the 20+ main genres
(which are broken down into
several sub-genres as well).
-
Fuzz offers -
oh crap - a mixtape feature. The
interface is cool as hell, and
there's a ton of great, free
music to discover on the site.
-
iCompositions
is dedicated to music created
with Mac's Garage Band software.
You'll need to register in order
to download songs.
-
The Internet Archive
has a massive audio section,
including audio books as well as
music. Be sure to check out the
open source section,
with over 150,000 Creative
Commons licensed items.
-
Jamendo rocks
for one big reason: they offer
both direct downloads and a
torrent tracker. 555 pages
multiplied by 20 items per page
equals a veritable crapload of
music. You'll find lots of
international music too, from
exotic places like Brazil and er...Canada.
-
Peoplesound is
similar to Jamendo, but you'll
find some major label artist
offerings. Registration is
required to download, and you'll
have to browse the
genres/artists to find the mp3
files, but they have plenty up
for grabs.
-
Epitonic is
"your source for cutting edge
music." You'll find tracks by
artists like The Strokes, Carl
Cox, Pavement, Peaches, Guided
by Voices, and Yo La Tengo.
-
I love me some
punk music, and fortunately punk
labels love to share their
music.
Fat Wreck Chords,
Hellcat Records,
Subpop, and
Epitaph all
have tons, and usually offer two
or three fulls songs from a CD.
Oi!
-
Stereokiller
has even more
punk/hardcore/metal goodness for
you. According to the guy that
runs the site, it's "better than
damn MySpace." Well, no argument
there.
-
Anti's slogan
is "real artists creating great
recordings on their own terms."
Downloads galore from guys like
Michael Franti and Spearhead,
Greg Graffin, Nick Cave, and
Billy Bragg.
-
3hive's
bloggers pass on links to some
excellent free mp3s on their
site. It's got a nice, personal
feel to it, though there's not
the tidal wave of music you'll
find at some other on this list.
-
itsfreedownloads
is worth a bookmark for iTunes
users. It's a site that keeps
tabs on the weekly freebies in
the iTunes store. You may get
sick of looking at all the ads,
but the free music will help
soften the annoyance.
-
mp3.com has a
pretty huge collection of free
tunes as well, with offerings
from almost 1,400 artists. Most
can be both streamed and
downloaded.
-
Purevolume.com
is loaded with streaming music,
but there are plenty of
downloads as well. Click the
search link, then search or
browse to "discover new music."
It's the quickest way to the
freebies.
-
Music.download.com.
What can I say, they've got a
ton of MP3s. I'm not much of a
CNET fan, but free is free.
-
Last.FM has
free downloads, too. It's not
just for streaming.
-
Stage.FM used
to be Audiri, and still offers
streaming and downloads for
independent artists.
-
iSound offers
another large catalog.
Head to the mp3 page
for free downloads, as some
artists only offer streaming -
including Our Lady Peace
frontman Rayne Maida, who I was
disappointed to see had no
downloads.
-
we7 is
offering all kinds of free tunes
- if you're ok with a brief
advertisement being appended to
the track. They're legal,
they're free, and you'll find
bands that you'd normally have
to pay for to get full mp3s.
-
SpiralFrog is
doing the ad-supported thing,
too (if you can get to it).
-
Blentwell is
"an ongoing document of the
evolution of blended music."
Tons and tons of DJ mixes,
categorized by genre.
-
MTV offers a
new group of about a dozen
downloads on a somewhat regular
basis. A drop in the bucket, but
still free.
-
Anyone with a
toddler or three at home will
apprciate
Free Children's Music.
You'll find tons of great, kid
friendly tunes there.
-
Classic Cat
maintains a massive listing of
free, classical mp3s available
on the internet. Files aren't
hosted there, but it's an easier
way to find works by Bach and
Beethoven than searching
yourself.
-
At
Spinner (AOL
Music), our chums have been
giving a free MP3 away every day
for the past two+ years.