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The advent of music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music has lessened the impact of music piracy. Illegal downloading has plagued the music industry since the turn of the millennium, but for the sake of a few dollars a month, the risks are now too high for most people.
However, music streaming services are not without their problems. For a lot of people, the biggest turnoff is the lack of ownership. If you use Spotify, you don’t own any music—you’ve merely been granted a license to listen to it.
But not to worry. If you’re the type of person who loves tending to a vast music collection on your PC or mobile device, there are still ways you can get free music. They are entirely legal, and the music will be yours to keep forever.
Here are seven websites to get you started.
1. BeSonic
This website may look a bit dated, but don’t let that put you off. BeSonic is a fantastic resource for anyone who wants to give their own music collection a boost.
The music is divided into five broad genres: “Rock and Alternative,” “Pop and Electro,” “Hip-Hop, Soul, and Urban,” “Jazz and Blues,” and “Mixed Up.” Each of the five genres is sub-divided into several sub-categories.
To help you find something to which you’ll enjoying listening5 Ways to Discover New Music Without Being Overwhelmed5 Ways to Discover New Music Without Being OverwhelmedHow do you discover new music? These five easy tools will help you find new songs and fresh albums without feeling overwhelmed.Read More, the site maintains weekly genre-specific charts for a song’s global popularity. You’ll also find sections devoted to new tracks and new artists.
2. Free Music Archive
The Free Music Archive has been around for many years, but it remains as popular as ever. The site focuses on hi-fidelity tracksThe 10 Most Common Audio Formats: Which One Should You Use?The 10 Most Common Audio Formats: Which One Should You Use?You know about MP3, but what about AAC, FLAC, OGG, or WMA? Why do so many audio file formats exist and is there a best audio format?Read More.
WUFM – an independent freeform radio station in New York – curates the content. Most of the available songs are from lesser-known artists, but occasionally you will see a famous name pop up.
You don’t need to worry about legality, as all of the tracks on the site are free for personal use. However, if you’re planning to use the songs in a commercial setting, you need to check the license associated with each individual recording.
3. Jamendo
Jamendo has a similar premise to the SoundCloud of five years ago: letting unsigned independent artists5 Independent Netlabels Where You Can Download Free Music Albums5 Independent Netlabels Where You Can Download Free Music AlbumsNetlabels are online record labels that distribute music primarily in digital audio formats, such as MP3, Ogg Forbis, or WAV. Typically, netlabels offer a great share of their releases for free, often under a Creative...Read More easily distribute their music to their fans. It currently has more than 400,000 tracks from 40,000 artists.
The music is built around “Communities.” Navigating to a particular community (for example, #Rock) will introduce you to its leading tracks, albums, and artists. You can sort the music by all-time popularity, what’s trending, and latest releases.
If you want to test the waters before you commit to a download, you can tune into one of the site’s themed radio stations. By the way, check out the best music download appsThe 8 Best Music Download Apps for Android and iOSThe 8 Best Music Download Apps for Android and iOSIf you want to listen to music offline, here are the best music download apps for Android and iOS.Read More if you want to take your music to go.
4. NoiseTrade
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. At least, not if you use NoiseTrade.
The artists who have listed their music on this site want something in return for the free download, typically a postal address or an email address. The idea is for the bands to easily connect with people who like their music – perhaps to advertise an upcoming tour or highlight the launch of a new album.
The flipside is that you’re more likely to find artists you recognize. Sure, you’re not going to find The Killers’ latest release, but most of the bands are already signed to a record label and have albums available.
5. Musopen
What if pop, rock, and the other mainstream genres aren’t your thing? Well, if you’re more into classical music, you’re in luck.
Musopen has recordings from some of the most famous classical musicians of all time. You’ll find everything from Bach and Beethoven to Tchaikovsky and Holst. You can search by composer, performer, instrument, period, and form to locate the content you want.
The site extends beyond music downloads. You’ll also find lots of free sheet musicTop 7 Sites to Find and Print Free Sheet MusicTop 7 Sites to Find and Print Free Sheet MusicHave you been searching for free printable sheet music? Here are seven awesome resources to give you a helping hand.Read More and even some educational resources.
6. Amazon
Amazon is comfortably the most recognizable name on this list. At the time of writing, it offers more than 50,000 songs for free. The project is an offshoot of Amazon Music UnlimitedAmazon Launches Music Unlimited as a Spotify KillerAmazon Launches Music Unlimited as a Spotify KillerAfter months of speculation, Amazon has launched its own ad-free, on-demand music streaming service. So, what's the deal with Amazon Music Unlimited?Read More.
To see what’s available, go to the Amazon website and navigate to Departments > Movies, Music and Games > Digital Music > Deals > Free. You can filter the results by genre in the column on the left-hand side of the screen. The most popular genre is “International,” but, with a little digging, you can find everything from Blues to Broadway.
Unlike some of the other sites I’ve covered, you can frequently find famous bands. JJ Grey and Mofro, Foo Fighters, and Blondie all have tracks available for download.
7. The Internet Archive
Did you know the Internet Archive is useful for a lot more than only laughing at how bad the web looked in 1999? It’s also a fantastic free audio library.
For a music lover, the best part of the site is the Live Music Archive. It was built in partnership with etree.org (the leading lossless digital audio distributor on the web) and features shows and concerts from a range of leading artists. On the first page of the results alone, you will find music from The Grateful Dead, The Smashing Pumpkins, and The Cheese String Incident.
The library doesn’t just cover music; you’ll also find old news and public affairs talks, radio shows, audiobooks, and poetry readings.
What Sites Can You Add to This List?
Almost these sites specialize in helping you download music from unknown and upcoming artists rather than current stars. It’s largely inevitable, bands who have already made it have no need to give their music away for free.
As a rule, if you see a site offering you a free copy of the latest album by Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift, it’ll probably be illegal. In which case you should proceed with extreme caution.
Be sure to also check out these online sources to download legal free Christmas music. And if you’re in the mood for songs that are out of the ordinary, try some video game music with these YouTube channelsThe 5 Best Video Game Music YouTube ChannelsThe 5 Best Video Game Music YouTube ChannelsIf you want to listen to video game music, YouTube is a good option. Here are the best YouTube channels for video game music...Read More:
From which websites do you legally source free music? Which websites have I overlooked? Which website on this list is your favorite?
Image Credit: Kidsada Manchinda via Shutterstock.com
Explore more about: Music Album, Streaming Music.
- I use Mp3juices.cc
Works 100% and completely legal
Every audio on the youtube is available there
Just paste the link or type the song and thats it!! - I usually use Mp3Coop for downloading music. You can download songs, parodies and pretty much every audio record
- All Sites are good. There is no need to download music on your mobile and desktop. Just only one click you can listen all latest song and video on your mobile and desktop. Here you can watch free Video and MP3 song on filmytune.com, they are providing all upcoming Bollywood songs and Punjabi songs. You can check all soundtrack with lyrics and movie trailer.
- SoundHost is an online platform (mobile and web) that allows you to listen to your favorite music online, watch the creativity of artists and for musical events.Music Audio Hosting SoundHost
(Good alternative to music in the SoundCloud is SoundHost)
On SoundHost you can listen, download, download, rate music, create playlists, there is an Android application! In short, the music sotsset very great functionality ... - Why not just use Youtube and use a 'Youtube to Mp3 converter' such as Media Human (which is completely free to use) or similar. Just about everything audio is on Youtube these days....
- That's illegal tho.
- Bandcamp.com. Some free music, a lot of name your own price, as well as standard pricing, but almost everything is free to stream as much as you want (full songs, not just 30-sec previews). There are some amazing artists as well as some big names.
- I DON'T CARE
- Here is also a link for free French music.The rest of the website is legal but not free.
- I love music, thank you for you sharing!
- Good find but the only problem with original free music is that its from unsigned artists.... and most of the time there is a reason why they dont have record contracts.
- I believe http://www.TopList.fm is one of them.Free Download Music Site – TopList.fm Free Music Downloads and Listen to Free Online Music Mp3 Streaming
- iZaRia.usNew, but still awesome. Got millions of tracks all available for free through copyright-compliant API providers. It just brings together music from a load of different sites...surprised nobody's thought of it before...
- Tonspion, Epitonic and Better Propaganda are my favorites for legal downloads. music.download.com was good but it's gone now.Stumble Audio is good for listening. Alternative Tentacles, Southern Records and other record labels offer downloads. RCRD LBL, HELLTHY Entertainment, and Muzie are good, too.
- definitely have a look at grooveshark.com - you can find pretty much any song you are looking for and can make a playlist. It's my new go to player, since seeqpod hasn't been running. it's probably honestly better than any other site you listed in terms of user-friendliness, not that those are bad sites. No downloads necessary or anything. I'm not affiliated with the site, I'm just a fan and I think you guys might like it. I have no idea how this can be legal though!
- If You Make It, has bunch of free albums for download along with Quote Unquote Records, both of which are donation based.ifyoumakeit.com/albums
quoteunquoterecords.com - Yes, the downloads are free but most are not very good.
- Oh, and another site with free high quality game music dedicated to the Zelda Videogame Series is: http://www.zreomusic.com/
- You forgot: magnatune.com
There is a lot of good music that is free for non commercial use. However, if you don't pay anything every mp3/ogg has the spoken text 'this was track X from the album Y by Z from magnatune dot com' appended. You can buy the music online and chose how much you want to pay by your self in a given range. Once bought you can redownload it as often as you wish. They have lossles flac files there!However, the real way of making money with magnatune is music licensing for commercial projects. E.g. the soundtrack of the game Braid consists entirely of songs from magnatune.com. I compiled the list of songs here: http://twoday.tuwien.ac.at/pub/stories/322135/ - last.fm also has music that can be downloaded free in addition to cataloging the music you listen to on your computer. It's a really sweet website!
- Thought I'd drop by and add http://www.youtorrent.com - It got pwned by the RIAA etc and so reopened with terabytes of legal music etc.Great list btw.
- 6 more fee music websites:
1. ArtistServer.com
2. Epitonic
3. GarageBand
4. Download.com (Music)
5. SpiralFrog
6. eMusic - i'm SO disappointed that you didn't mention Jamendo.com, which has more than 18K FREE albums with Creative Commons licenses. Great music site.
- you should try ourstage.comi realy like it!
- I have a campus radio show which specializes in free music from across the internet (as well as locally), so some of these sources will come in handy! I would also like to point out two other great sources for free music:
- Awesome, I hadn't seen the legal torrents site before. It'd be nice if they organized the torrents according to genre/etc. a bit more, but still, free is free!One of the other sites that I prowl for music is thesixtyone.com. Not all songs are downloadable (I haunt the 'recently submitted' chart to find more of them), but you can listen to everything in good quality as much as you want. Nice browsing and listening capabilities on the site.
There are always live sessions coming up (Grace Potter and the Nocturnals happening on January 28), but a walk through the archives can provide you with hours of musical entertainment. From Avett Brothers to Zookeeper with bands as diverse as Swingin' Utters and The Mountain Goats in between, Daytrotter has something for everyone, and hours and hours of it.
[national vid here]
Hype Machine is sort of a conglomeration of Pandora and last.fm. It aggregates music from mp3 blogs and posts them on the front page, where users can 'love' songs and create lists out of those tunes. You can search under different genres or look for the 'freshest' music, album premieres and most popular artists. Looking at the most popular tracks is a great way to find new music, and each song links to different ways to purchase the music and various ways to share the song on social media.
National Public Radio's music section has it all. Interviews, sessions, lists, reviews, All Songs Considered, well crafted articles; it's a veritable feast of music discovery. Diverse in its content, NPR Music currently features Jack White talking about Charley Patton, a commemorative post about the 20th anniversary of The Chronic and downloads from ten artists you should have known in 2012.
An idea so simple you wonder why nobody thought of it earlier; a place to share your jams. You know, that song you are currently listening to that is doing it for you. The one you have on repeat, the one that's making your day better or maybe even making you cry. Users post their song of the moment using links to services like YouTube or Soundcloud. The song is shared with followers who can like it or comment on it or re-jam it for their own current song. I use this site often when I want something different to listen to. Scrolling the main page - where I can see the jams of the people I'm following - I get a long, diverse list of songs to listen to, or I can click the 'explore' button and find songs similar to my current jam.
5. Soundcloud
Soundcloud started off as a way for musicians to share recordings but eventually spread out to be so much more, now utilizing technology that allows musicians to collaborate, promote and share their music as well as allowing listeners to find new music to listen to. The most unique thing about Soundcloud is the way it displays the songs in waveform, allowing the user to listen to certain pieces or even stop and comment on specific points of a track (timed comments). Recognized more as a distribution tool than a listening tool, Soundcloud still does both magnificently.
I like to call this one 'emotional radio.' Stereomood is the mood ring of Internet music applications. Put 'I feel aggressive' into the search bar and you're immediately greeted by a playlist fit for your mood. Not only do you get songs to match what you feel, but you get to discover new music in the process.
It's got a pretty accurate algorithm going. 'I feel melancholy' brought me to Bon Iver and 'I feel sad' gave me a Bat For Lashes song that more than fit the bill. There are a lot of moods to explore, some of complicated, some simplistic, but the songs are always spot on. You can heart songs and add to your personal mixes so the next time you're feeling sorry for yourself, you can just click on the mix and wallow away. Or, you can click the 'mood flip' button and attempt to cheer yourself up musically.
Live concerts, streamed online. Is there anything else you need to know? The Ramones at the Palladium in 1978. U2 at Boston Garden in 1987. Janis Joplin, Filmore East, 1969. And it's not just rock. There's jazz , indie, bluegrass and even comedy. While this is a member only site, there's a free trial period which will probably convince you it's worth it to become a member (only $2.99 a month). There are both audio and video streams of shows, playlist, interviews and featured downloads. The best is when you find a concert you attended. Hello, Billy Idol at Nassau Coliseum in 1984!
I hope you found a site you didn't know about before or rediscovered an old one. Feel free to leave suggestions for a future Part 2 to this post in the comments.