Q Magazine this month (March 2007) published a list of a 100 websites where you can download music for free from. I’ve had a quick flick through the article – although some of the sites are artists giving away some additional tracks, others are actually streaming sites – which I thought was a cope out, so I thought I’d try compile my own list. Obviously there will be some overlaps, but hopefully I’ve got a few sites that Q haven’t. I can’t always guarantee that the sites provide the mp3s legally – but I can say that they don’t promote the wholesale sharing of copyrighted albums.

2. iTunes – yes they have a free weekly song to help promote artists. There are other similar sites with free downloads or introduction freebies these include:
3. eMusic
4. Mp3.com
5. Napster – now it has been legalised.
6. XPoNential Music on demand – associated with the American WXPN radio station who record live sessions, some of which are available here.
7. Archive.org – source of live bootlegs – archive insist on explicit approval from the artists for bootlegging of live performances – huge choice of bands. Archive.org also cover books and other downloadable content as well. More information on how allows tapping can be found at “bands that allow taping” here.
8. MySpace’s music – artists both signed and unsigned promote themselves through the site including free track downloads.
9. Live Spaces – Microsoft Equivelant to MySpace
10. Wolfgang’s Vault – a nice library of live performances.
11. An Aquarium Drunkard – blog which reviews and makes downloads available.
12. Day Trotter – This site with blog etc. have managed to get artists to call in to their little studio to record songs for them which are made available though their site.
13. GarageBand – unsigned and independent artists.
14. LegalTorrents – As bit torrent becomes more common as a means to download, I’d imagine this site and others like it will pop up.
15. Epitonic
16. SXSW – The South By South West event website provides a huge preview download of artists performing at the festival.
17. Blogs, some blogs provide free tracks to downloads, such as Arjan Writes
18. Large Hearted Boy – my favourite blog, with a daily roundup of press articles and downloads
19. Idolator – a prolific blog.
20. An Aquarium Drunkard
21. Stereogum
22. Glorious Noise
23. Furthur Net – dedicated to sharing live bootlegs using a dedicated peer to peer client.
24. DimeADozen – a torrent based site for sharing bootleg recordings. Great site.
25. Trader’s Den – An alternative to DimeADozen.
26. dmusic – providing music licensed by artists using the Creative Common license .
27. Filter Magazine – an online US magazine with downloads available.
28. Big O Magazine – an online magazine from Singapore (written in English) although it covers a lot of politics it is also an interesting source of bootlegs and reviews.
29. WOXY – the partner site to LaLa.com (US CD swapping service) provides live performances.

Okay – so it isn’t 100 strong – but not a bad start. I’ll update the list when I find other good sites worth of adding.

Tags: MP3 Download Sites Music Downloading Torrent

It would seem that the next Radiohead album has had a date set – with a degree of confidence that Amazon have provided a page for pre-ordering Radiohead’s album for 2007!

Tags: Radiohead music

This is an exciting step forward, if as Digital Music News reports (Link to EMI Pushes MP3-Based Plan, More Details Surface — Digital Music News ) the first of the big four maybe prepared to to risk a DRM free world.  If EMI doesn’t report any down trend in revenue I suspect the others will have to follow suit.

I, for one would make use of any service that sells a serious catalogue in a DRM free manner.

  I was looking at the EFF site about DRM in music and followed their link to Live gigs you can buy in DRM free downloads (Link to nugs.net presents LIVEDOWNLOADS | Catalog of MP3 FLAC Downloads). Although a lot of the artists of predominatly of the Alt and Indie seens that is a good representation with stuff from:

• Gomez
• Iron & Wine
• Barenaked Ladies
• The Editors

To name but a few.

I’ve been on the look out for a good calendar of upcoming CD releases, although there a few around one of the best I’ve seen is here :Link to Upcoming CD Releases.

Yes you can see some information from the likes of Amazon and CD-WoW but they’re only confirmed dates once they’ve been given the information that allows orders etc to be placed.

What would be really really good though would be the ability to register an interest in releases such that you get an email reminder just before the CD hits the shelves. 

Tags: CD Calendar

According to the Guardian (article here) the record industry are going to justify their pricing policy of 79p per track (something that doesn’t make sense when you can buy the album as a CD for the same price or less). 

Live Nation, better know by its old name of Clear Channel seems to have aspirations in buying up all the decent music venues in the UK. With the approval of the acquisition of the Academy Music Group (who own Brixton Academy, Shepherds Bush Empire and few other well known music venues (article here)) along with venues such as Oxford’s Zodiac (details here). 

 If this continues then I believe the outlet for smaller upcoming bands maybe curtailed, and the fair potential for ticket prices to rise noticeably.  I’m generally not against corporatisation for the sake of it (I don’t see No Logo as my bible).  But in the music industry it seems that  corporatisation tends to be a choking influence with a reluctance to invest in new artists.  As it is Clear Channel has a serious chunk of radio airplay already, the number of potential organisations to get new artists exposed in traditional means is shrinking.

Aqualung” target=”_blank”>I think I’ve seen a trend that looks very unattractive in the music industry, specifically artists, particularly British ones once they start to make some head way in the States treating their British fans as second rate citizens.  Let give you an example; Aqualung got themselves going in the UK rather well, particularly with the help of some music being used in O2 adverts.  After the second album, someone, somewhere decided that they should make a real push in the USA.  I don’t have a problem with that, and after a couple of years Aqualung are back with a new album.  Well sort of, it appears that they have release dates for the USA (March 13th) – but not in the UK.

 Given that I’ve followed them pretty much every step of the way I feel abandoned. Not only that the next tour – one date in the UK before heading to the USA again.

 Aqualung aren’t the only artist like this, Gomez are just another example of this; although this is a little more understandable as their musical style has roots in the southern states.

The silliest thing is, that by atleast not releasing the album globally they’re giving people an excuse to go to P2P sites and downloading the album.  After all, why should I pay two or three times the album price to get it on import and wait weeks when the same album will eventually be available at the usual price in the UK (assuming they get around to actually releasing it here at all).