The Top 10 Sources for Free and Legal Downloads… Yes Friends, Your Ipod Just Might Explode

This is a guest post from Sarah Eliza at Devestate Boredom. Sarah Eliza started blogging about six months ago, when she realized that if she didn’t find a creative outlet her head would probably explode all over the walls of her cubical. Her blog Devastate Boredom tracks her journey to self-actualization, with a liberal helping of pop-culture fun, free-MP3 updates, TV & movie reviews, growing environmental awareness, and Thriftie adventures to go along with it. She’ll get really excited if you stop by and say hi. Any artist mentioned here comes highly, highly recommended from Sarah Eliza.

I love music. Passionately, sometimes obsessively. I also love expanding my music collection, but being a Thriftie, I don’t love paying for that collection. However, I have scruples and principles, and by that I don’t mean Russian money and school disciplinarians, I mean the type of conscience that glowers at me resentfully if I even think about using illicit file sharing or ripping a library CD. So, since acquiring my MP3s legally is a priority, and I don’t really enjoy lining the coffers of iTunes more than I have to, I’ve accumulated rather a stockpile of interesting options for finding and/or acquiring legal music for free or cheap. Here are the top eight, in no particular order:

1. Daytrotter. Daytrotter is a music website with something rather unique… a recording studio. With that and their resolution “to contribute to the musical landscape, not just toss it around like a used book or a stolen pick-up line,” Daytrotter has good reason to be proud of their weekly live recorded MP3s from a wide variety of artists. They’ve been at it for a while, so their archive boasts 600+ tracks… more than enough to satisfy even the most frugal of music connoisseurs! I’d recommend that you start with Alela Diane, Au Revoir Simone, and the National, and work your way from there.

• Helpful hints for Daytrotter: Subscribe via email for weekly updates on new MP3s from recent sessions, and even request a free t-shirt to join their street team if you’re so inclined! A quick scroll through the alphabetical archives should help you get an idea of which of your favorite artists have paid them a visit in the past.

2. NPR Second Stage downloads & podcasts NPR isn’t all classical orchestrations; they also have several radio programs looking at new and notable music of the upbeat, modern variety. You can download individual tracks directly from the Second Stage page or get in on full live concert recordings as well. You can find a fairly wide range of offerings here, from Tom Waits, to Metric, to the Decemberists.

• Helpful hints for NPR downloads: If you’re a fan of podcasts take full advantage of that those, or just use your favorite RSS reader to subscribe to their feed streams. Either will make it a lot easier to stay up-to-date on the ever-changing selection.

3. Free-and-legal MP3 blogs such as Fingertips, Muruch, and 3hive. These blogs provide a wealth of free MP3s each week, usually tracks provided by the label for promotional purposes, each accompanied by an insightful, engaging review of the song and artist.

• Helpful hints for music blogs: If possible, take advantage of streaming music options to listen to the full range of what’s available while minimizing the clicking involved. Search 3hive and Muruch by artist if you’re looking for somebody in particular, or check out Fingertips’ alphabetical master artist list. I dare you to look up an artist there and not get sucked into browsing! Fingertips also has great “Top 10″ that highlights the most popular recent downloads. Finally, be sure to note that these MP3 postings frequently have a shelf-life, so don’t procrastinate on downloading any interesting ones. If you don’t know where to start, check out Fingertips for Sam Philips and TV on the Radio, and then Muruch for Caroline Weeks. You’ll never look back.

4. Amie Street. The site Amie Street is an interesting concept, initially offering album downloads for free and then increasing to regular pricing as they grow in popularity. With a full range of musical styles available, this can be a great source of intriguing finds.

• Helpful hints for Amie Street: To catch free tracks here you either want to look for more unknown artists or try to catch music right after it’s first posted to the site. If you check out Amie Street’s new releases and then scroll down to New Albums on the bottom half of the page, you’ll find a good number of completely free albums

5. Weekly free downloads on iTunes, Amazon, and Borders. The free tracks on iTunes might be an obvious one, but Borders and Amazon have weekly freebies too. There are definitely winners here if you keep your eyes open!

• Helpful hints on iTunes: Don’t forget that iTunes has a total of three free downloads per week — the one highlighted predominately, then a “Discovery download” of something a little less mainstream, and a “Cancion de la Semana” as well. Obviously the last one is in Spanish, but even if you don’t speak the language, you can enjoy the rhythm!
• Helpful hints for Amazon: Sign up for their MP3 email alerts via the Amazon Delivers link (under Settings) to be kept abreast of the rotating free tracks, and follow them on twitter for daily discounted CD deals too. I found Weepies album more than half off that way, so it can make a great addition to your twitter-life!

6. eMusic.com. eMusic.com is subscription service providing members with a monthly chunk of downloads for about fifty cents a download – a good bit cheaper then you’ll find on most other services. You may be thinking, What?? Advocating an automatic monthly expenditure is *not* appropriate behavior for a Thriftie… But wait! Don’t lose faith in me so quickly. Even if you not interested in the actual subscription service, you can still receive 25 downloads for free just for trying it. And really, if you’re a music junkie like me, this is probably an expense you can justify to yourself, based on an amazing selection (unless you’re looking for more mainstream labels that is…) and what ends up being very affordable downloads. This is kind of like a virtual, musical Costco where you can buy Indie/oldies/classical/cool music in bulk. You can find everything from Frank Sinatra to Dar Williams to M. Ward here, so you shouldn’t have trouble discovering something you like.

• Helpful hints for eMusic: Your download “allowance” doesn’t roll-over by month, so create a calendar reminder for yourself somewhere so you don’t lose any. It won’t be the end of the month either, it will a month from the day you sign up, so plan accordingly. If you sign up and later your pocketbook wants a break, you can put your account on hold for up to three months without having to actually cancel anything. The site also offers a good number of free downloads organized by genre, so be sure to take advantage of those to find new music, and use eMusic’s refer-a-friend service to score even more free MP3s.

7. Label and artist websites. This one takes more research, but can be a real goldmine… Labels like Barsuk and Asthmatic Kitty often post multiple MP3s for each of their bands. You can get everything from old Death Cab, to Mates of State, to Sufjan Stevens and friends here. Artists’ websites frequently do the same. So. Much. Music. I’m pretty sure they’ll be playing Josh and Sufjan in heaven, so get a head’s start now. They’re just that good.

8. Streaming sources, such as Pandora, Last FM, and Relevant TV. Pandora is probably the most accessible online music player, creating “stations” based on your favorite artists and groups, and then allowing you to customize further from there depending on your likes and dislikes. Last FM is another solid option, with a social networking component that can allow you to connect with friends and other listeners with similar tastes in music. Relevant TV is the streaming music video channel that first introduced me to Interpol and Regina Spektor, and currently is highlighting Au Revoir Simone and Conor Oberst (though selections change continually).

Addition from Carrie: Last.fm also offers some free downloads so make sure to check those out too (some big names I recognize in the current offerings include Moby, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, and Garbage) . If you’re a last.fm user and want to compare your musical tastes to mine you can check out my profile (I’ve been using last.fm since 2005).

9. Spinner’s Daily MP3 offerings. These last two are both free-and-legal options that Carrie has mentioned in the past, but are both well worth being brought up again… Spinner’s daily MP3s are a positive deluge of awesomeness. I found exciting stuff from Olivia Broadfield, Mew, and Yo La Tengo within about five minutes of aimless clicking so dive in and see what you find!

• Helpful hints for Spinner: You don’t want to try the RSS feed if you’re looking specifically for MP3 updates, since the feed is for the website as a whole and appears to have dozens of posts a day. If you like your friends and want to share your new finds, you might consider downloading their widget to add to your facebook or blog. If you aren’t up for that, add the daily MP3 page to your collection of homepage tabs on your internet browser instead… a handy little trick that works for me usually. What could make each morning better than being greeted with a new MP3 as you go to check your email??

10. PureVolume. Another of Carrie’s favorites is PureVolume, a social music site with a huge selection of streaming music and free tracks too, available on a promotional basis. There’s a wide variety of genres available, but if you’re interested in punk, hardcore or alternative rock, this will probably be your best source of all ten. You’ll also be able to find tracks from groups that have gone a little more mainstream, like Paramore and Plain White Ts.

• Helpful hints for PureVolume: To go straight to the free tracks, click on Top Downloads and then check out their offerings ranked by popularity. Note that what starts streaming when you hit the play button from the main page might not actually be the one available for download, so you probably want to go into the full listing for the group to see which is which. Streaming is always fun too though…

Have fun downloading — let the flood of music begin! Keep me posted on any jewels you find, and if you have sources of free-and-legal music that I haven’t stumbled across yet, let me in on those too!

Related posts:

1. Make Your Own iTunes Plus Files
2. Managing a Large Music Library on a Small iPod
3. 25 Days of Free Christmas Music from Amazon
4. What I’m Reading 2/12
5. iTunes Tip: Storing Your Media on an External Hard Drive

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