I wrote an article about living without the music industry a month ago. In this article I added some good sites that offered free music downloads. Lots of people replied to this article and added more sites that they used to get free music. Free, meaning free of charges and free to download without breaking the law.
I think that this is a good way to listen to great music for free, support the artists that contribute their music and show the music industry that there are other methods to distribute than forcing the customer to buy copy protected, rootkit infested overpriced music cds.
Update: I published a new updated list that can is named Free Music List July 2007.
Today I decided to compile a big list of free music sites on the internet, I hope you enjoy this selection.
I encourage everyone to add his site to the list and give a rough intro to it. The list does not contain internet radio stations or streaming services, only sites that allow downloads in mp3 format (its fine if they offer additional streaming services) . I made an exception to sites that offer a huge list of streaming titles, those have been added as well.
| Name | registration | remark |
| 3 Hive | no | review site with downloads and streams |
| Altsounds | no | great assortment, not all songs downloadable |
| Amazon Music Downloads | yes | |
| Ampcast | no | only streaming |
| Archive.org Netlabels | no | |
| Artistopia | no | downloading and streaming |
| Audiostreet | no | Streaming and Downloading |
| Audiri | no | great assortment, not all songs downloadable |
| Bluebeat | yes | only streaming |
| CC Mixter | no | only mixes |
| Cd Baby | no | only streaming |
| Feels like Christmas | no | christmas music |
| Classic Cat | no | provides links to download sites |
| Dance Industries | no | |
| Digitalsounds | no | downloads and streams, german language |
| Dmusic | no | downloads and streams |
| Download.com | no | |
| Epitonic | no | Streaming and Downloading |
| Etree Live Concerts | no | bittorrent downloads |
| Etree Live Music | no | only live music |
| Foem | no | |
| Free Kids Songs | no | songs for children |
| Free Sound Project | no | free sound samples |
| Garageband | no | good selection, hard to navigate |
| Gigatracks | no | downloads and streams |
| Into Music | no | downloads and streams |
| Iuma | no | |
| Jamendo | no | bittorent or emule downloads |
| Kahvi | no | |
| Karadar | no | classic music only |
| Legal Torrents | no | bittorent downloads |
| Magnatune | no | downloads and streaming |
| Mixposure | no | |
| Mp3.com.au | no | downloads and streams |
| Mp3 Jackpot | no | downloads |
| Muzie | no | japanese site |
| Overclocked Remix | no | computer and video game remixes |
| Oddio Overplay | no | links to artists homepages |
| Oggle | no | google like search engine |
| One Netlabel | no | |
| Op Sound | no | |
| Purevolume | no | |
| Remixwars | yes | electronic music |
| Singfish | no | only streaming, lots of known bands |
| Soundclick | no | few downloads, mostly streaming |
| Soundlift | no | streaming and downloading |
| Starfrosch | no | german site |
| Superhits | no | german, mostly german songs |
| Tonspion | no | german site |
| United Bands | no | |
| Vitaminic | no | only streaming |
| Weed Files | no | only wma |
Related Articles:
Free Music List July 2007Free file host list december 2005
Huge List of Free Legal MP3 Sites
Download free music from Last.fm
Free Legal Music Downloads: In China
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my favorite site for downloads, and music in general, is Tilos radio in Budapest.
Fantasic shows 24 hrs a day with extensive archives.
Since it’s in Hungarian, it’s tricky getting around.
Using FaganFinder to translate helps a lot:
http://www.faganfinder.com/urlinfo/
Here’s some main pages:
http://tilos.hu/musorok/hetfo.html – daily show downloads
http://tilos.hu/extra/letolt_djk.html – specials
http://tilos.hu/index_real.html – main index
http://tilos.hu/index2.html – index 2
http://timea.tilos.hu/ – another view of shows, some kind of rating system
http://tilos.hu/djk/index.html – DJ page
most shows have their own blog pages with playlists, e.g.
http://blog.tilos.hu/roadmovie/
Live Stream: http://yp.tilos.hu/tilos_high.ogg
blog: http://blog.tilos.hu/
—
Here’s a wonderful world music blog from Budapest:
http://nomax.sarok.org/
classic rock, discographies of famous artists
Just to say that you list ampcast.com as only allowing streaming but it does allow some downloads
try searching for ‘three dead trolls in a baggie’
i believe it is to do with the artists decision
Don’t forget soundclick.com
There’s TONS of great downloads to be had at www.archives.org…
music, video, text, software and all FREE!!
GREAT selection of old school films (Coronet, Mr. Bungle)
SignHereOnline.NET provides unlimited free mp3 downloads of music composed by unsigned artists. I like this site because it allows you to voluntarily rate the artists featured on the site.
another huge legal mp3 wiki, inspired by a kuro5hin thread:
http://www.redferret.net/pmwiki
Lots and lots of live shows from our great rockers
For more free music… mandyleigh.com .
fantastic singer/songwriter. very eclectic, but mainly mellow on the site.
Thanks chap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This plethora of information has really been a great advantage. Hope you continue this service in its intact way.God Bless!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hi nice article list great work and thanks for u sear this with us
DUDUKI.NET :: Music portal :: Music albums, Discography, Band/Performer/Artist profiles
Our free site, Classical Connect (www.classicalconnect.com) features more than 2,000 pieces of classical music. It serves as an alternative venue for hundreds of talented musicians. The site is well organized: users browse it by instrument and composer or search for any name.
No way record firms will be able to take free music from the internet, this is just unrealistic
i think they all work very nice.
Give it away I say
Songs from our catalog have been played by hundreds of radio stations and podcasters worldwide and it didn’t cost them a penny, in return we got exposure and promotion…..sounds like a good deal to me, that’s why many of our tracks have been released under a creative commons license and are free to download. So what if you lose out on lost sales, you gain more in the long term by increasing your fan base (If you can survive that long)
With such an overcrowded market place giving away your music is essential in my opinion. The biggest problem for emerging indie artists today is obscurity, not piracy. To find out more listen to The Antiqcool Podcast
http://antiqcool.podbean.com/2010/01/22/the-antiqcool-podcast-episode-1-how-can-you-be-a-part-of-our-success/
i think the list is great and worth to watch.
There’s also a lot of new online tools ot there online.