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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? Here's a breakdown.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.
Free Music Downloads No Sign Up No Nothing
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.
Free Music Without Signing Up
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
Free Music Download No Sign Up Needed
Free Music Download No Sign Up
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.us
New, 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.comYes, 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. eMusici'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.com
i 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.