There is a hell of a lot of free music on the internet waiting for you to be downloaded, and I mean legally. All of it. Actually, you can spend hours and hours, days and weeks listening to music you haven't paid for and never have a single speck of guilt or doubt on your mind. And I don't mean the self-produced shit that is stacking mp3.com and the likes. I am talking about high.profile, great artists and bands. (Okay, so you won't find Robbie Williams or stuff by The Eagles, but if you are looking for them, what are you doing here anyway? I am talking about my line of music, check my reviews section, if you want to know what I mean.) So, if you are among the minority of internet-users, who actually cares about copyrights read on. The rest of you will undoubtedly already have switched back to Soulseek, Kazaa light or whatever it is you are using to break the law. Not that I'd care, but don't come crying to me, if the RIAA sues you for a million bucks because you thought you'd share your 5.000+ mp3s via peer-2-peer-networks with the world. (this was updated Jan 2005).

I see two burning questions on your mind: Why is that? and Where is that? I'll answer them both. Read on.

But first two encouraging hints to lighten up the atmosphere here:

WHY IS THERE FREE MUSIC ON THE INTERNET?

Easy. Because a lot of record labels and bands try to get their music known to people that way. The internet most of all is a new channel of distribution for everything that can be broken down into zeros and ones - information, pictures, music, whatever. And those commodities and services that can't be digitalised can be offered globally and easily and then be sent by mail. A perfect tool for smaller, alternative and younger labels and bands. Knowing that people interested in music that is not readily available via radio or CD-storages in the local supermarket will search on the internet for new stuff, these labes and bands will try to offer them little pieces of their music. That way the listeners will get to new and hopefully exciting music and the labels and bands will get known around the world. Democracy in arts.

Of course, you won't get full albums to download (except for pure web-labels, see below) but you'll get some songs or tracks. And if you really really like one of those, go ahead and buy the damn disc - obviously the artists have deserved it. I said democracy before, but that also means paying for goods what they are worth. I also said that you'll get a lot of music, not that you'll get all music and all songs.

Usually bands and labels don't put their #1 hits on the web, but they'll also want to give you a good song or track. A lot of times you'll get a song that is by judgement of the label or band is "almost as good" as the first single (which should contain the "very best" song) which in the course of time will be released as a second single, if the sales or the band is good enough to release a second single.

When I first discovered free music on the internet, I downloaded about 400 MB within a month and that was before the idea of Napster was born. Just imagine, what you can do today.

In short words: Don't worry. You might not find everything you're looking for, but you might discover a lot more than you thought. You'll get a lot of quantity, which you can sift through to find quality - and if you want more quality you'll have to pay. Which sounds like a fair deal to me. (Not counting the costs of your internet connection and the time spent searching and downloading stuff.) In a way, it is like carrying home product-samples that were given away for free at the supermarket. Which brings us straight to the second question:

WHERE IS FREE MUSIC ON THE INTERNET?

Everywhere. Really. If you have no idea, where to start looking, try some of these: 

record label-websites

Almost every record label has its own website now, and almost everyone of those websites offers a section that is called "audio" or "sounds" or even "free mp3s". Epitaph record, the biggest punkrock-label around, offers two or three songs to almost every record they release. Roadrunner records and Relapse records, the best metal-labels around at the time, offer a lot of mp3s by their bands. But also smaller labels from every genre, even Trost-records has them. And don't get me started on labels in the electronic genre. Why don't you just look at your favorite records and check out the labels that have released them. You'll find a lot of stuff to keep you happy. A lot of labels even offer unreleased and live stuff, B-sides, anything. Do not forget to check out the links to the websites of the bands on the label. Of course, all of these want you to buy the whole records, when you have downloaded their music, and you might even. But in the meantime, you'll have a lot of music to listen to.

web-labels

Some people have already stepped into the new era of producing and distributing music, making music a purely artistic enterprise and putting the duty of getting to the music on the listener (for which I try to give some support here). Those people start web-labels. Of course, electronic music and avantgarde music is on the forefront here, but with time a lot of more will start to exist. These websites offer the whole records, the covers and usually they'll burn the music on a CDR for you if you are nice and send them some money for time, hardware and postage. Check out www.autresdirections.net or www.thinnerism.com. These are great people doing it for the fun of it, so give them they respect they deserve. There is no money in here! If you know of any other great weblabels, please drop me a line at cracked69@hotmail.com. thanks.

There are some other labels which have also put a lot of music on the web. There are hybrids evolving. Small labels will put records they want to but can't afford to release on their website, like ouzel records who put the Ouzel Collage 2004 on the web, which is definitely recommended. On the other hand, some labels have released commercial CDs with MP3s on them, which will give 150-200 songs per disc for a relatively small price.

band -websites

The same as for record label-websites, actually, but of course focused on the band. A lot of time band-websites will offer tracks of old or sold out records, live recordings and other stuff that was limited. The best is new songs that haven't been released yet or music that won't be released for all kinds of reasons. The Beastie Boys for instance released an anti-war-song on the web only, because they were sure that no US-record-company would release it, nor would be fast enough to bring it out in time. This way: one day for writing and recording, next day putting it on the website and sending an email to major music magazines, tv- and radio-stations and within a week the whole world knows about it. If you are in the same league as the Beastie Boys, of course. Anyway, you can find some real gems on the websites of bands. Every band has a website and it is usally noted somewhere on the record. Aw, the heck, use google. You'll find it.

websites of music magazines and radio/tv-stations

A lot of times websites of music related "real" media, from Rolling Stone Magazine and MTV to suckfuckpunkfanzine, will feature links to bands or labels or even feature parts with downloadable music as well. Some of them do their own compilations on the web, e.g. the Austrian (not so) alternative station FM4 features the "soundpark" where every band can upload their songs - which is usually to be avoided, but they have compiled a cream of the crop collection, which is actually quite good and features music played on the air as well. So, take a look around. Other magazines have collected links to diverse stuff, such as FHM-magazine and its 100 sexiest video-clips, which you might look at, if you are so inclined.

mailorders and distribution -websites

If mailorders or record distributors don't offer their own mp3-section with free downloads, they'll definitely have a link-section with the URLs of labels and bands they deal. Some are bigger, like www.southern.com, others are smaller. You'll find 'em. Off you go.

music-search websites

And, of course, there are some websites that will do all the work above for you. Search for free music, present them to you with descriptions and rankings, links to the labels and bands' websites, suggestions with comparable bands and all that you ever want. Like Amazon, only you'll have the 2-click-free-download, usually. Of course, these websites are out there to produce visits, clickrates and unique visitors to sell to possible advertisement-clients - but those advertisements give them the money they need to keep on providing easy access to free music, so that sounds like a good deal to me. We have already gotten used to annoying pop-ups, pop-unders, skyscrapers, banners and whatever those marketing types call 'em today. There are usually easy links to internet-mailorders to buy the whole record from.

My favorite music-websites are www.insound.com and www.tonspion.de. There is also Better Propaganda, which I can't recall the URL of now. All of them offer a lot from all directions. This week I downloaded music by Blonde Redhead, Matmos, Mountain Goats, The Panthers, Zoot Woman and some others. Epitonic is US-based, but searches all over the world and does a lot of interconnections, so if you stumbled across something you liked, you can check stuff in the same genre, on the same label and so on. Tonspion is a german site, but you don't have to understand German to read bandnames and songtitles in the headlines, do you? Tonspion also uses the free mp3s to offer compilations complete with covers and inlays for the CD-case. While epitonic puts all the mp3s on their own server, Tonspion links you directly to the sources (i.e. all of the above), so you'll find a lot of new sources as well.

music blogs

This is a completely new but rising way to get music. A good part of all those millions of blogs is about music. People who want to show off about their musical knowledge and providing the songs as well. Actually, it is all the stuff you hate about blogs and bloggers but the music is still there. So there is a lot of copyrighted stuff as well. Until the musicindustry gets wind of this, those bloggers act by putting on the music for a limited amount of downloads or days. So it is more like checking what is available than really searching for music. But what the heck… The Music-Blogs-Aggregator is a good start: http://www.mp3blogs.org/

Well, that's it for now. Go and have some fun downloading great music for free and without being hasselled by the man. The main fun is, as it always is, discovering some great and rewarding new music. I know that most people are afraid of hearing music by bands they don't know or have never heard of, and you are all poor bastards. If you get over that barrier, you might as be enjoying 100s+ hours of great music. Let's get it on.