10 ways to legally download free music

Robert Powell reveals the top 10 ways to legally get your hands on some free music...

Four billion pounds for a record label...why not take two?! That’s how much Guy Hands, chairman of Terra Firma, paid for ailing music company EMI back in 2007. Except he’s convinced he was ripped off, and reckons he was tricked into paying more for the label by his (ex!) good mate David Wormsley.

But this is anything but a simple barney between mates. Mr Wormsley works for investment bank Citigroup – who happened to provide a £2.6bn loan to Terra Firma for the purchase. He was also a chief adviser for the deal and, according to Mr Hands, made out that loads of people fancied buying EMI – when, in fact, it was just him.

Unfortunately for Mr Hands, a court ruling last week didn’t agree with him! So to make sure you don’t end up in Terra Firma style music pickle, here’s my top 10 ways to legally download free music...

Free iTunes

As well as the millions of paid-for tracks on iTunes, there’s also regular free downloads. The ‘Single of the Week’ features an up and coming artist every week, whilst the ‘Discovery Download’ aims to get you to widen your music tastes. There’s even a ‘Latino Single of the Week’ for all you Spanish music lovers out there!

Live music

Live Music Archive has stacks of good quality live recordings from several well-known and more unusual bands. Wolfgang’s Vault is another free service dedicated to the archiving of hundreds of free concerts – it also has an iPhone app for live music on the go that was voted the ‘world’s best app’ by MacWorld magazine.

The golden oldie YouTube is another great source of live music – if you avoid the inaudible, homemade mobile phone videos that is!

Free music giants

These are the sites everyone should know about! Last.fm has a healthy collection of free mp3 downloads, as does the granddaddy of the free music sites; mp3.com.

Spotify will let you stream 20 hours of music for free every month as long as you listen to the occasional advert, whilst myspace is your gateway to millions of tracks from bands all over the world.

Remixes

There are loads of free remix sites out there featuring budding and established DJ’s mashing up all genres of music. Funky Remixes has loads of free rap, rock and hip-hop tracks, whilst CCmixter is a creative commons site featuring stacks of tracks remixed by users.

There’s also a good selection of remixes on E-Z Tracks, whilst Barefiles is the place to be for all your dubstep and garage mixes.

Get writing

Ever fancied yourself as a music journo? Well now could be your chance to give it a go! Loads of independent music sites have sprung up recently that more often than not rely on reviews from unpaid writers. They’ll send you promo copies of albums and singles – you send them a review back, simple!

If they like your work, you may even get free gig tickets and the chance to interview bands. But it’s not only a great way to get new music for free – for any aspiring journalists or music industry workers, it’s also CV gold.

The best way to get onto the mailing lists of these sites is to review a new album and send it in, along with a covering letter singing your praises. Stereoboard, Muso’s Guide and Drowned in Sound all use unpaid reviewers, so what are you waiting for? Get writing!

Online radio and TV streams

Arguably the daddy of online radio, Last.fm, allows you to create intelligent radio streams tailored to your tastes. Deezer is another great streaming sight covering a wide range of music, whilst Beatcast has a good archive of live performance and music videos.

It’s also worth keeping an eye on your favourite bands fan page when they tour or release an album as many artists now stream live gigs and webcasts online.

New music

If you fancy listening to something a bit different and supporting new music in the process, then get onto Epitonic; a site that hosts promo tracks from a variety of labels and artists and aims to encourage more people to buy independent music. Garageband is another site dedicated to breaking new music; more a social network than a download site, you can vote for your favourite artists and help them kick-start their careers.

Other great new music sites include Copyleft, PureVolume and Clash Music.

Specialist music

Whatever your music taste, there’s sure to be a free download site to suit your needs. Muzzie is a free Japanese music site whilst Overclocked Remix with meet all of your video game music needs.

Reggae fans should head to the Dubroom whilst all you lovemoney.com punks out there can get your fix at Fatwreck Chords. There are also loads of jazz on Archive.org and tons of dance tracks at Dance-Industries.

Classical

Wikipedia has a huge list of classical works, as does the Classic Cat and Piano Society.

Archive.org also has an interesting collection of music made on 78rpm records and phonograph cylinders for all you Ada Jones and Enrico Caruso fans out there!

Christmas songs

If the inevitable barrage of Slade and Mariah Carey in shops across the country this Christmas doesn’t quench your thirst for festive ditties, then head over to Feels Like Christmas where you can get hold of hundreds of traditional and modern Christmas songs.

Finally, for a few more freebies to keep you entertained over the coming months click onto lovemoney.com's Top 10 freebies for winter.

Happy downloading!

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