Nowadays you can stream music in many places, but if you want to download a song then it becomes difficult. Are there any services that allow you to download music legally? We dive into the options.
Streaming music is fun and convenient, and there are a ton of free or inexpensive services with a huge catalog of music, including Spotify, Google Play Music, and Apple Music. But if you're on the road a lot, streaming music can consume a lot of data, and if you go over your data limit it can cost quite a bit of money - much more than the subscription costs of the streaming service.
That's why it's sometimes nice to just have ripped CDs or downloaded music tracks on your device so that you can listen without worry. But where can you still download legal music for free these days? iTunes has given up the ghost. Here we discuss some options.
NoiseTrade
NoiseTrade is a website where artists offer their music for free. It mainly contains music by independent or lesser known artists, but also a number of EPs from major record companies. The music is only available as full albums. There are no single numbers on the site.
To download music you need to create an account with your email address, a password and your zip code. You will then receive occasional emails from NoiseTrade itself and from artists with advertising and other promotional material in exchange for the free music. You can unsubscribe from these mailing lists if you wish.
You can search by genre and keywords, and your search results will also show suggestions based on your search. When you go to an album's page, you can download the music by clicking the Download Music to push. The files contain artwork, but the sound quality ranges from 192kbps to 320kbps MP3.
During the download you can share your choice on Facebook or Twitter, and you can choose an amount to donate to the artist in question if you wish.
Free Music Archive
Most of Free Music Archive's music comes from smaller or lesser known labels and artists. Some of it may even be used freely in other works published online. You can use this music or sound fragments for your own video productions, for example. If you would like to use a song from this website for something you publish online, you can check the song's license type by going to the song's page and looking at the bottom right of the license type and what it means. If you need additional permissions, you can even contact the artist via a link. You can browse by genre, Creative Commons license type and curator.
When you've found something you want to download, all you have to do is click on the downward pointing arrow, without the need for an account. The songs are supplied with a bitrate between 256kbps and 320kbps, but the artwork is unfortunately missing.
Not for free
There are also many services where you can download songs for a fee. A well-known platform is, for example, Bandcamp, where you can discover and support artists in an accessible way. An alternative is Amazon, which has a Download Store. For a few euros you can download songs from a fairly extensive catalog.
