Find FREE music online
Samuel Van Eerden
June 10, 2007
I've written about this before, but as you all know, the internet is a vast series of tubes and keeps on pumping out new things. The music industry especially is in a constant state of evolution, changing and adapting, trying to find its own; and at the center of it all, is the internet (propelled by you: the everyday music aficionado). The CD, LP, record--whatever you want to call it--is fast going the way of the Dodo; digital music is where it's at.
In this new era of musical revolution, where love and appreciation for music (in a kalidascope of styles) grows, even as music sales drop, here's a guide to help you navigate the world wide web in search of those free tunes. (Note that you should always support the artists of the music you listen to. Remember that without financial aid, they can't keep making the music you love.)
1. Google. Most things that happen on the internet begin with google, and finding free music is no exception. Unfortunately, you can't usually discover an album just by asking the Big search engine where to find "'the entire U2 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb' online." However, google's search technology can still be utilized to find great music via these search engines: www.g2p.org and http://www.smacki.com/mp3%20search%20using%20google. (Oh, and look...here's that U2 album: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmembers.magnet.at%2Fpiero%2FFiles%2FU2_-_How_To_Dismantle_An_Atomic_Bomb_www.goldesel.to%2F&ei=UDdqRt-DEZvAiwHXwuWfAw&usg=AFQjCNEX0T54XlqoRAZv_fKF7uUZPQhC2g&sig2=twgm00hrD1oGbTdDSsXhHA)
2. Music Blogs. There are a lot of music blogs. Almost every artist/band has at least one 'fanatical' blog dedicated to them. Some are more sophisticated then others, with a focus varying from strictly news-related blogging to mass-media-mayhem. For example, the group Switchfoot has a popular fan-maintained blog (www.switchfeed.com) which covers news about the band and posts a variety of tunes from the band, as well. Other popular groups like Linkin Park, Lifehouse, Flyleaf, and U2 all have at least one blog or website devoted to them, saturated with mp3s of the artists' work. Finding these blogs is just a matter of letting your fingers do the walking...in the 21st century definition of the phrase, and "google it." Other music blogs like http://idolator.com and www.buzzgrinder.com will often include mp3s in their posts. It may sound like finding a needle in a haystack, but once you start surfing to these blogs, the network is like wikipedia: everything links to everything else, and pretty soon you're swimming in a sea of blogs and loading up on bookmarked sites.
3. AOL Listening Parties. One of the best-kept secrets of the internet is AOL's excellent full CD "Listening Parties" featuring online CDs available for your listening pleasure. Keep checking http://music.aol.com/songs/new_releases_full_cds.adp for brand new records offered in their entirety for online streaming. This site is updated often.
4. Music/Video mashups. If you can't find just the audio version of that great underground hit by whatstheirname, chances are you'll find the audio included (in high quality) as the backdrop to some fan made internet video. Search youtube for the song title, or do what I do, and go to the foundling (but very helpful) website www.musicmesh.net. This is a GREAT music discovery website, which not only shows you the song you want, but also suggests other albums that are similar to the one you're listening to. To find a song/video mashup on musicmesh.net is easy, just type in the artist/album you're looking for (from rock to opera to classical) and you'll be presented with a tracklist. Select a song and a series of youtube videos containing it will appear. Cycle through until you come across one you like. Depending upon the song's popularity you can find everything from the album version to a live concert version to the version the band did in Yahoo Music's studio.
5. Myspace and Purevolume. Duh, right? Well, it bears reminding. Plain and simple, if it's a hit song it's on www.myspace.com and www.purevolume.com. Some artists even offer free (and paid) downloads from their user page.
6. Streaming Radio Stations. I've talked about these before. The future of free online radio is in question, but for now your best bets for great quality streaming music are www.pandora.com, www.lastfm.com, and www.slacker.com. Online radio juggernaut www.live365.com is a bit sluggish and oldish, but it has a wide selection of free stations in just about every style.
7. Napster. A free account at www.free.napster.com allows you to listen to practically every song in their database up to three times. How many of us actually listen to a song more than 3 times anyway? And if you do, you might as well buy it. Oh yeah, Napster has that option too.
8. Music Search Engines. We discussed google earlier, but there are other music search engines that (surprise) may root out tunes that google's crawlers missed. I know; unbelievable. Here are my favorites: the Hype Machine (http://hypem.com/), esnips (www.esnips.com), eSpew (http://espew.com/), AOL audio search (http://search.aol.com/aol/audiohome), xanga audio search (http://search.xanga.com/searchaudio.aspx), elbo.ws (http://elbo.ws/), and sideload (http://www.sideload.com/). Which search engine do you use, you may ask? Well, as you start using them, you'll realize that different sites specialize in finding songs in certain styles and genres. It's a matter of learning the ropes, but you'll see, you can find most anything.
9. Free Music downloads. Yes, and I do mean legal downloads. It's amazing how many websites and artists actually offer free downloads. And not just the cruddy stuff either. free.napster.com and iTunes both offer frequent music downloads. And they aren't the only ones with promos like that. Also try sites like http://www.mp3.com/free-music/. Seems like I'm constantly running across offers for free tunes and promotional EPs offered for no charge. It's the digital world, baby. Indie artists are particularly zealous to give away their tunes, just so they can get their name out there. Record labels will also sometimes offer free downloads of a collection of songs from artists on their label.
10. Live Music. Not really a specific website here (though I can direct you to http://www.archive.org/details/etree), but a lot of artists are willing to give away music from their live shows, thereby encouraging fans to pick up studio albums. Internet searches will often reveal stashes of live media located throughout the web.
Bonus: 3 Killer tips for finding/downloading music
1. Websites like esnips.com and zshare.net use mini embedded windows media players to play songs. Download songs playing in these players by (1) right-clicking in the media player, (2) selecting "properties", (3) copying the song's URL link and (4) inputing that into the URL bar at the top of your web browser. (5) Hit "enter" and a box will pop up, prompting you to 'open' or 'save' the media file.
2. Firefox's excellent add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201) downthemall allows you to see and choose all downloadable media on any internet page and save it to your computer. This add-on is a must-have for any internet user, and in itself enough of a reason to switch to the Firefox web browser if you haven't already. Download speeds are proclaimed at 400x normal download speeds, but that varies based on processing speed.
3. In iTunes, go to the Advanced Menu and select "subscribe to podcast." Input the URL of a blog or website which contains music files. For example, the del.icio.us. tag for music would be http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:filetype:mp3. iTunes will get the feed for that URL and provide you with a list of music files you may download in the podcast section.
This guide is offered as a tool for (new) music discovery. I do not encourage you to steal music. Rather, if you use any of these tips to find great tunes, support the artist who created it, by buying the single or the album. They will appreciate it, and keep making great music.]
In this new era of musical revolution, where love and appreciation for music (in a kalidascope of styles) grows, even as music sales drop, here's a guide to help you navigate the world wide web in search of those free tunes. (Note that you should always support the artists of the music you listen to. Remember that without financial aid, they can't keep making the music you love.)
1. Google. Most things that happen on the internet begin with google, and finding free music is no exception. Unfortunately, you can't usually discover an album just by asking the Big search engine where to find "'the entire U2 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb' online." However, google's search technology can still be utilized to find great music via these search engines: www.g2p.org and http://www.smacki.com/mp3%20search%20using%20google. (Oh, and look...here's that U2 album: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmembers.magnet.at%2Fpiero%2FFiles%2FU2_-_How_To_Dismantle_An_Atomic_Bomb_www.goldesel.to%2F&ei=UDdqRt-DEZvAiwHXwuWfAw&usg=AFQjCNEX0T54XlqoRAZv_fKF7uUZPQhC2g&sig2=twgm00hrD1oGbTdDSsXhHA)
2. Music Blogs. There are a lot of music blogs. Almost every artist/band has at least one 'fanatical' blog dedicated to them. Some are more sophisticated then others, with a focus varying from strictly news-related blogging to mass-media-mayhem. For example, the group Switchfoot has a popular fan-maintained blog (www.switchfeed.com) which covers news about the band and posts a variety of tunes from the band, as well. Other popular groups like Linkin Park, Lifehouse, Flyleaf, and U2 all have at least one blog or website devoted to them, saturated with mp3s of the artists' work. Finding these blogs is just a matter of letting your fingers do the walking...in the 21st century definition of the phrase, and "google it." Other music blogs like http://idolator.com and www.buzzgrinder.com will often include mp3s in their posts. It may sound like finding a needle in a haystack, but once you start surfing to these blogs, the network is like wikipedia: everything links to everything else, and pretty soon you're swimming in a sea of blogs and loading up on bookmarked sites.
3. AOL Listening Parties. One of the best-kept secrets of the internet is AOL's excellent full CD "Listening Parties" featuring online CDs available for your listening pleasure. Keep checking http://music.aol.com/songs/new_releases_full_cds.adp for brand new records offered in their entirety for online streaming. This site is updated often.
4. Music/Video mashups. If you can't find just the audio version of that great underground hit by whatstheirname, chances are you'll find the audio included (in high quality) as the backdrop to some fan made internet video. Search youtube for the song title, or do what I do, and go to the foundling (but very helpful) website www.musicmesh.net. This is a GREAT music discovery website, which not only shows you the song you want, but also suggests other albums that are similar to the one you're listening to. To find a song/video mashup on musicmesh.net is easy, just type in the artist/album you're looking for (from rock to opera to classical) and you'll be presented with a tracklist. Select a song and a series of youtube videos containing it will appear. Cycle through until you come across one you like. Depending upon the song's popularity you can find everything from the album version to a live concert version to the version the band did in Yahoo Music's studio.
5. Myspace and Purevolume. Duh, right? Well, it bears reminding. Plain and simple, if it's a hit song it's on www.myspace.com and www.purevolume.com. Some artists even offer free (and paid) downloads from their user page.
6. Streaming Radio Stations. I've talked about these before. The future of free online radio is in question, but for now your best bets for great quality streaming music are www.pandora.com, www.lastfm.com, and www.slacker.com. Online radio juggernaut www.live365.com is a bit sluggish and oldish, but it has a wide selection of free stations in just about every style.
7. Napster. A free account at www.free.napster.com allows you to listen to practically every song in their database up to three times. How many of us actually listen to a song more than 3 times anyway? And if you do, you might as well buy it. Oh yeah, Napster has that option too.
8. Music Search Engines. We discussed google earlier, but there are other music search engines that (surprise) may root out tunes that google's crawlers missed. I know; unbelievable. Here are my favorites: the Hype Machine (http://hypem.com/), esnips (www.esnips.com), eSpew (http://espew.com/), AOL audio search (http://search.aol.com/aol/audiohome), xanga audio search (http://search.xanga.com/searchaudio.aspx), elbo.ws (http://elbo.ws/), and sideload (http://www.sideload.com/). Which search engine do you use, you may ask? Well, as you start using them, you'll realize that different sites specialize in finding songs in certain styles and genres. It's a matter of learning the ropes, but you'll see, you can find most anything.
9. Free Music downloads. Yes, and I do mean legal downloads. It's amazing how many websites and artists actually offer free downloads. And not just the cruddy stuff either. free.napster.com and iTunes both offer frequent music downloads. And they aren't the only ones with promos like that. Also try sites like http://www.mp3.com/free-music/. Seems like I'm constantly running across offers for free tunes and promotional EPs offered for no charge. It's the digital world, baby. Indie artists are particularly zealous to give away their tunes, just so they can get their name out there. Record labels will also sometimes offer free downloads of a collection of songs from artists on their label.
10. Live Music. Not really a specific website here (though I can direct you to http://www.archive.org/details/etree), but a lot of artists are willing to give away music from their live shows, thereby encouraging fans to pick up studio albums. Internet searches will often reveal stashes of live media located throughout the web.
Bonus: 3 Killer tips for finding/downloading music
1. Websites like esnips.com and zshare.net use mini embedded windows media players to play songs. Download songs playing in these players by (1) right-clicking in the media player, (2) selecting "properties", (3) copying the song's URL link and (4) inputing that into the URL bar at the top of your web browser. (5) Hit "enter" and a box will pop up, prompting you to 'open' or 'save' the media file.
2. Firefox's excellent add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201) downthemall allows you to see and choose all downloadable media on any internet page and save it to your computer. This add-on is a must-have for any internet user, and in itself enough of a reason to switch to the Firefox web browser if you haven't already. Download speeds are proclaimed at 400x normal download speeds, but that varies based on processing speed.
3. In iTunes, go to the Advanced Menu and select "subscribe to podcast." Input the URL of a blog or website which contains music files. For example, the del.icio.us. tag for music would be http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:filetype:mp3. iTunes will get the feed for that URL and provide you with a list of music files you may download in the podcast section.
This guide is offered as a tool for (new) music discovery. I do not encourage you to steal music. Rather, if you use any of these tips to find great tunes, support the artist who created it, by buying the single or the album. They will appreciate it, and keep making great music.]