Archives

The DoveSong Foundation MP3 Library
Internet Archive: Audio Archive
The Classical Music Archives
Special Archives on WFMU

Online Streaming Radio Stations

GothMetal
BBC 6Music
BBC Radio London

Subscription Services

EMusic

Mainstream Mass Free Download Sites

Epitonic
IUMA

Exotica

Bellybongo
Raymondo's Dance-o-Rama
Popular Sound Spectaculars
Basic Hip Digital Oddio
Milwaukee John
Sem Sinatra's Solar System of Sound
Dana Countryman

Compilations (Complete Albums)

Individual Band Sites (Complete Albums)

Individual Band Sites (No Albums)

Free Legal Music Downloads

Your first stop should be Michael D Crawford's article on legal downloads. It contains a wide range of directions and would be a good and solid basis to your explorations.

Mike explains the iRATE online radio system admirably. Cutting to the chase, it is a client for legal mp3 downloads that enables you to finesse what you listen to. There are also many streaming radio stations online catering to almost every genre, including my favourite, GothMetal.

For live music, check out The Live Music Archive, which is an online depository of concerts, placed in the public domain by the artists involved.

EMusic is the best of the subscription services, offering an incredible variety of independent music with no DRM or other restrictions. There are major label equivalents which suck, and if you have a Mac, you can use iTunes, the most famous online music download store. All these require payment, of course, and are subject to varying levels of restriction and DRM.

Other sites offer a large amount of underground or unknown music for free download, often by people starting out in the business. The most famous is mp3.com, which is now sadly defunct. Luckily Epitonic and IUMA are still alive.

There a growing number of net labels, mostly dealing in electronica, who publish their releases online as free legal downloads. I'm still following up on a few of these but so far I can seriously recommend Kikapu and NoType. Comfort Stand is a net label dealing with strange music, and has at least 17 albums available for free download, including the superb 'Two Zombies Later' compilation.

Older and lesser known genres are often well represented online by fans. In particular there are a number of sites that host an album at a time for free download, changing the album on a weekly or monthly basis.

Many artists are now hosting their music online at their own websites. Some even host complete albums for free download. Chris Thompson and Freak Kitchen offer some complete albums (two and one respectively) with their other output as samples only. Others, like Anacrusis, offer their complete catalogue, as well as live performances and demos.

Other bands are unsigned but have a substantial amount of serious quality music available for free download. Machinae Supremacy are highly recommended.