Where is the Good Music on the Internet?
Although you are unlikely to find legitimate music from the Top 40 charts available
for download, either for free or for a fee, thousands of free or inexpensive
legal tracks are available. You need to do a little snooping, though, to find
them.
Music Download Sites
As promised, here's our collection of Web sites where you can find music and related information.
ArtistDirect.com www.artistdirect.com
The best part of Artistdirect.com is the Ultimate Band List. Lots of downloads
here, plus the latest news. We can't wait to chat live with Lars and the boys.
We just hope we're not on the band's Napster list.
CDNow.com www.cdnow.com
CDNow will sell you standard CDs, make custom CD compilations for you, or let
you buy and download music to make your own. We have a problem, however, in
understanding how selling a single track at $2.99 constitutes a sale or special
offer. That's 30 bucks for enough downloads to make a ten-track disc. We'll
go buy two discs retail for that.
Emusic.com www.emusic.com
Emusic is one of the top online music destinations. It has licensed content
from many record labels and sells it for a small fee, usually 99 cents to $1.49
per song.
Listen.com www.listen.com
Listen.com is a good place to find tracks, both free ones and low-cost single
downloads. Listen.com does not host its own songs but, rather, points to other
sites that do.
MP3.com www.mp3.com
MP3.com is a great place to get music because all of it is free-unless, of course,
you want the folks to make a disc for you. Still, that only costs six bucks,
and it includes audio tracks, MP3 files, and a copy of Winamp. There is a lot
of good music here... and a lot of bad. Any artist may post his or her songs
to MP3.com, so with the wheat comes the chaff. You can listen to any song in
lo-fi or hi-fi and then easily download the ones that you like for later recording
to CD.
RioPort.com www.rioport.com
RioPort was started to support owners of the Diamond Rio portable MP3 player.
It has evolved into an excellent destination for finding free and low-cost downloadable
music.
Rollingstone.com www.rollingstone.com
Rollingstone.com offers information on various artists and lots of free downloads.