Although big music corporations and governments have really clamped down on music piracy, making it more difficult to download free music from the internet, there are still plenty of perfectly legal sites where you can listen to music for free while you’re online. This gives you the chance to listen to music before buying it, discover new music, and create great online playlists that you can share with others.
Here are some of the big sites with free music streaming, with the high and low points for each.
The Sixty One
The Sixty One is devoted to showcasing and exposing obscure artists of all genres. There’s a range of musical styles from classical to rock and roll, folk to jazz, and everything in between. There is a real mix, but it’s easy to sort through because you can browse music by genre or by mood (mellow, upbeat, etc.), or search by artist name. Also, if you find a song that you like, you can choose to listen to similar songs. Don’t expect to find big name musicians on here; you’re more likely to find the musicians playing at local coffee shops than bands you hear on the radio.
The best part: You can find fantastic music that you never would have heard of otherwise.
The worst part: Although it’s easy to find newly added songs, sometimes searching properly through the entire collection can be awkward.
Playlist
Playlist has an enormous library, so you can create playlists with almost any musician you can think of. They have both some lesser known artists and big names, so you have a really good selection. It is very straightforward to use, and it is easy to retrieve and share your playlists. There are options to post your playlists on your blog or other webpages as well.
The best part: They have a really good collection of music, so no matter what your musical taste is, you can find the songs you love.
The worst part: Due to licensing laws, many of the songs on Playlist are now restricted to certain countries. So unless you live inside the USA, you’re likely to find all of your favourite songs…and then not be allowed to listen to them.
Pandora
Pandora is an intelligent internet radio site. Basically, as you listen, you can give each song a thumbs up or thumbs down. It will incorporate that into the decisions for what to play for you. So you don’t create a playlist as such by picking out all of the individual songs, like on the previous two sites. Instead, you create your own radio station that only plays music you like. It can be addictive to listen to because it will bring up old favourites and new songs that you fall in love with.
The best part: It listens to your opinion, so that after awhile it’s only playing music you like, but the list is always changing and expanding.
The worst part: Due to licensing constraints, you can only listen to Pandora within the USA, so the rest of us are out of luck.
MySpace
Combine a major social networking site with thousands of artists around the world, and you have MySpace’s music section. Each musician has their own page, which normally has a playlist of several of their songs. You can’t make a playlist on this site or create your own radio station, and there’s no way to just leave it on in the background. But it has a huge range of musicians ranging from huge stars to the up-and-coming, and you can listen to the music and interact with the rest of the page.
The best part: You can find all sorts of musicians on it, so it’s an easy way to search for any musician that you’ve heard and want to find out more about.
The worst part: You can only listen to a few songs at a time before you have to go to a different artist’s page or tell it to start over.
