Illegally downloading music isn’t an option if you’re looking to support the artists and producers who enrich our lives — as you should be.
As any true music lover knows, you should try to support the people who make your favorite tunes. Downloading may not be as popular as streaming music, and there are some convenient ways to stream your favorite tracks for free, such as Apple Music and Spotify. But if you don’t want to pay, streaming options beyond that are fairly limited. So, what are the best free music download sites?
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Even in the music streaming era, it's tough to find free tunes without breaking the law. We've handpicked a selection of the best free music download sites for you to legally download your next.
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Below are a few of our favorites, so you can keep the tunes going even when your car rounds the next bend or Comcast decides to cut you off. Many of these sites are void of Billboard artists like Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar, but if you look in the right spots, you’ll find a few hits from some big names, along with scores of independent artists that should keep your ears happy and your wallet heavy.
Free Music Archive
In 2009, New Jersey-based WFMU Radio embarked on a project to make contemporary music of all genres available to the public, and the Free Music Archive was born. Since its inception, WFMU has partnered with dozens of other curators, and the site has become a veritable treasure trove of free content.
The site combines two different approaches to posting tracks: First, it indexes free music posted by all of its partner curators, and second, it allows users to post their own music directly to the archives. This synthesis of sources creates a mind-boggling library of tracks that you could literally spend months browsing through, whether you choose to do so by curator or genre. In addition, the site hosts a myriad of podcasts, and renowned radio stations such as Seattle’s KEXP frequently post live cuts from their studio sessions with big-name acts passing through. The smash tracks may lack some post-production, but they’re also free.
SoundCloud
Not every song posted on SoundCloud is free, but both big-name and lesser-known artists often offer free downloads if you can manage to find their verified profile — though sometimes you may have to drop them a like on Facebook or a follow on Twitter for the privilege. You can browse SoundCloud by artist, genre, popularity, or latest postings; you will be surprised at how many free tracks can be found. There is also a section of the site dedicated to tracks released under Creative Commons licenses, which means you’re free to download, remix, or tweak them as much as you like.
SoundCloud essentially serves as the YouTube of music uploading, in the sense that anyone can upload their tracks before specifying whether they’re available for download or strictly for streaming purposes. Moreover, the site touts an extremely active user community and one of the sleekest user interfaces of any site on our list, one conveniently lined with a navigational bar at the top and direct access to the service’s accompanying mobile apps.
ReverbNation
Big names like Alabama Shakes, The Civil Wars, and Imagine Dragons all got their start on ReverbNation by sharing their music for free and building up their loyal fanbase. There is a mix of every genre on ReverbNation, but the site tends to lean toward more pop, alternative, and hip-hop than anything else. With a community of nearly 4 million artists, labels, and users, ReverbNation helps you sift through its immersive catalog with cool features like the site’s Discover app and a page that will help you find who is about to be the next big thing.
Amazon
You’re probably used to using Amazon to buy everything from the best headphones to dog food, so why not add some free music to your shopping list? Believe it or not, the retailer has a massive assortment of thousands of free tunes available via its digital music arm, letting you pick through everything from obscure indie and classical music to hits by Carole King and the Foo Fighters. Checkout is quick and painless, and it works just like buying a song that costs money on Amazon, sans payment. Simply add a song to your shopping cart, check out, and the tunes are yours.
DatPiff
Rap lovers, rejoice! Since the mid-aughts, the hip-hop community has become a veritable breeding ground for free music, much of which comes in the form of mixtapes. Some are original compilations by artists looking to cop some shine, some feature rappers freestyling over popular instrumentals from their contemporaries, and some are just dropped by artists looking to reward their loyal fans with some free tunes — we’re looking at you, Curren$y.
DatPiff is also the only site on this list that consistently offers free music from mainstream artists — think Future and Drake — and remains the No. 1 spot for fans to download new tapes, view release schedules, and listen to fan-made compilation albums. The site even features a pop-out player so you can listen before you download, as well as a news aggregator that collects stories from sites like HipHopEarly.
Audiomack
There’s a new kid on the block that’s challenging DatPiff’s domination. It’s called Audiomack, and it’s home to what’s fast been branded the best collection of hip-hop, rap, and trap — comprising of everything from smash hits from heavyweights like Kodak Black to viral tracks from emerging artists like NBA YoungBoy. As of late, however, a lot of creators have decided to disable downloads, instead opting to utilize the service’s streaming feature; though rest assured, there is still a large amount of downloadable material, including some mixtapes from Migos, Playboi Carti, and Rich The Kid.
Live Music Archive is essentially a partnership between Internet Archive and etree.org, a community dedicated to providing high-quality, lossless versions of live concerts. You can think of it as a bootlegger’s paradise given the site’s sheer abundance of concert material, much of which focuses on jam bands such as the Grateful Dead, String Cheese Incident, and Sound Tribe Sector 9. Still, there are a host of other bands to choose from — The Smashing Pumpkins, Jack Johnson, Animal Collective, etc. — along with plenty of genres to browse, ranging from jazz to reggae.
Navigation is a bit of a chore due to the overwhelming wealth of content, but there are ways to filter the results by title, publish date, or original creator. Once you find a particular show, you can often stream or download the individual tracks as a FLAC or MP3, allowing you to play the tracks in your media player of choice. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t ensure a quality performance — so we’d recommend previewing anything that sounds like it could tickle your fancy using Live Music Archive’s web player before taking the plunge and downloading it for local playback.
Jamendo
With hundreds of thousands of tracks from thousands of artists, Jamendo is easily one of the biggest repositories of free music on the web. You won’t find all of your favorite artists here, but the site’s streamlined user interface makes it great for browsing and finding talented new musicians. Instead of browsing by genre, you peruse tracks by popularity, most downloaded, most played, or latest release. Popularity is based on user ratings, so despite the massive number of tracks on the site, you don’t have to spend a lot of time searching before you find stuff that pleases your ears. To be sure, the site’s penchant for lesser-known artists and experimental tracks makes it more suited for someone looking for something new rather than specific artists.
NoiseTrade
NoiseTrade is one part free music site, one part promotion platform. You can download any individual track or album an independent artist uploads to the site if, in turn, you generously supply them with your email address and postal code. The freemium promotion platform also encourages you to spread the word about artists you like via Facebook and Twitter while giving you the option to quickly tip the artist a suggested $4 donation.
The site’s user interface is also remarkably clean and simple, allowing you to effortlessly search or browse artists within a visual hub loaded with recommendations and complimentary mixtapes that cover a wide swath of genres, musicians, and forthcoming events. Furthermore, the site often boasts exclusive samplers and releases from artists before they premiere elsewhere, along with corresponding links that connect you with artists’ social-media pages and management. Some of our favorite albums being offered last time we checked? Wild Ones’ Keep it Safeand John Prine’s Live in Asheville ’86.
Musopen
If you’re a fan of classical music, finding free downloads is easy — after all, most classical compositions and many performances have long been in the public domain. Musopen, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and accessibility of classical music, hosts an impressive library of compositions without any copyright restrictions. Users can browse by composer or performer, or filter results based on the time period and instrument. Whether you enjoy the complex arrangements of the Baroque period or the fierce passion of the Romantics, Musopen probably has what you’re looking for.
The selections are available for streaming or downloading — some even in high resolution — and the site offers a copious amount of helpful background info for your perusal. If you’re curious what a rondo is or what defined Chopin’s style, you can learn all that here. Musicians may also be delighted to learn that the site provides sheet music, so if you find yourself falling in love with a particular piece, you can follow along or even learn to play it.
Last.fm
When Last.fm was initially created in 2002, it functioned as an internet radio station in a similar fashion to Pandora and iHeartRadio. In 2005, however, the site adopted Audioscrobbler, a music-recommendation system that collects data from dozens of media players and music-streaming websites to craft individual user profiles that reflect their musical taste and listening habits. Last.fm has now “scrobbled” info from nearly 100 billion plays, which total more than 7 million years’ worth of listening.
Unbeknownst to many Last.fm users, though, is the site’s repository of free music. It’s accessible via the “Free Music Downloads” link at the bottom of the page — or here — and offers a fairly diverse library of free music, ranging from Sufjan Stevens to The Glitch Mob. It’s eclectic, if limited, and free.
Editors' Recommendations
The internet offers a lot of things and among them is free music. You can find plenty of websites that offer free downloadable music; however, not all of them are legal. So if you are looking for songs that can be availed safely and free of cost, we have handpicked the best music websites for you.
How to download music for free?
There are lots of people who aren’t sure where to download free music from or how to download songs. To help you out, I have created this following list of best free music download sites. Just visit the links given below and look for download symbols. These sites will offer you free music downloads with just a single click.
Before going checking out these music sites, do take a look at our other lists of free and legal services:
Top 11 music download websites | 2019
1. SoundCloud
SoundCloud is one of the popular music sites that lets you stream unlimited music and download songs for free. In fact, it is also viewed as the best Spotify alternative where you can get online music without paying.
In this online music streaming community, the content is uploaded by independent artists and famous musicians. You can search for songs through bands or artists tags in the search bar. SoundCloud was also recently featured on our list of India’s best music streaming services. It contains a relatively small but very enjoyable collection of remix Hindi songs that can be downloaded for free.
However, not all music at SoundCloud is free, and some of them even require you to Like a Facebook page to obtain the track. But many of them can be downloaded instantly by hitting the Free Download button right below the soundtrack.
Visit SoundCloud website
2. ReverbNation
This music website is behind the popularity of bands like Alabama Shakes, The Civil Wars, and Imagine Dragons. It is ReverbNation where they started getting recognition by sharing their music for free and gathering a huge loyal fanbase.
ReverbNation offers free music downloads from a variety of genres, but their collection is well known for pop, alternative, and hip-hop. At present this site caters to nearly 4 million artists, labels, and users and provides a great user experience to music lovers through its impressive catalog.
For those who’d like to discover more can do so through the music website’s Discover section which brings a good collection of audio songs to download.
Visit ReverbNation website
3. Jamendo
The songs uploaded at Jamendo Music are protected by the Creative Commons license, which means you can safely download music offered on the website. All the content present on this site is independent music, so if you are searching for mainstream tracks, you will probably have to look somewhere else or pay for it.
Jamendo is best suited for music explorers as they have well-curated playlists and radio stations that are regularly updated. In case you want to license music for your video, commercial, or film, Jamendo also offers a rich collection at fair prices.
Visit Jamendo Music website
4. SoundClick
SoundClick is the best place to download music directly from artist’s websites. There are several artists on the platform offering their music for free. You can also buy licensed songs or download free ones legally.
One can explore the huge collection of songs available there according to genres. You can stream or download them as per your needs, once you have signed up on the website.
Even though this free music download website is a little cluttered and the UI isn’t that friendly, there are some cool features such as creating custom radio stations, interacting with other listeners on the forum and reading more about your favorite SoundClick artists.
There is also a feature that lets you mail personalized e-cards to anyone with themes such as birthday, valentine’s day or party with custom text and any background music of your choice on SoundClick.
Visit SoundClick website
5. Audiomack
Audiomack is an emerging music sharing platform that has a user-friendly interface which makes it the best SoundCloud alternative. This free music download website is a hub for artists, labels, and music lovers for discovering amazing music.
It has well-categorized sections such as Trending, Top Songs and Top Albums that will help you to discover great songs. The trending music section has the hottest Hip Hop, Electronic, and Reggae listed in real-time which has made quite popular among the young population.
Not all the songs on Audiomack are free but many artists offer their tracks and remixed music for free downloading. But you can stream an unlimited number of songs through the website on desktop PC, or on phones through free iOS and Android app.
Visit Audiomack website
Also Read: Free Sports Streaming For 2019
6. NoiseTrade
NoiseTrade has an amazing collection of albums by several artists who want you to check out their creations. In case you like the song and, you can render your support to them by making a donation.
Music on this website is completely free and legal to take. However, the songs can be streamed partially and to obtain full access or download an album, you will have to trade your email address and postal code.
Once you are done with it, the album will be saved as a ZIP file containing the MP3 tracks. Finding new songs on NoiseTrade is also quite easy. Just check out the Trending section and Top Downloads.
Visit NoiseTrade website
7. Internet Archive (Audio Archive)
Internet Archive’s audio section not only offers you free music but also brings audiobooks, podcasts, radio programs and live music. The audio library contains over 2 million free digital audio files.
Even though the songs aren’t well categorized, music lovers can sort the audio tracks available according to the year of publish, creator, language, and other filters such as most viewed, media type, topics & subjects. These categories can be a little confusing, yet upon searching hard enough one can still find some amazing songs.
I was able to find free music downloads from all kinds of artists and even the global, mainstream songs ones from Ed Sheeran, John Mayer, Coldplay, and Kendrick Lamar. The best part is you can download music safely and free in multiple file formats such as MP3 and OGG.
Visit Internet Archive’s Audio Library
8. Last.fm
When Last.fm was created in 2002, it initially functioned as an internet radio station. But in 2005, Audioscrobbler adopted the site.
It implemented a music recommendation system that collects data from different media players and music streaming websites to create customized individual profiles based on users’ musical taste and listening habits.
What’s unknown to many users is that Last.fm is one of the best music websites to download songs for free. You can check out the list of downloadable songs from through the “Free Music Downloads” link present at the bottom of the page or by clicking here.
Visit Last.fm website
9. CCTrax
Songs on CCTrax are available as Creative Common music so it’s free and safe to download music from this platform. The website has a nice layout where you can search for music according to license, genre, label, and artist.
However, the website offers online songs in a handful of categories such as Electronica, Dub, Techno, Ambient, etc. But you can listen to or download the tunes without creating an account and there is also an option of getting the entire album at once.
Visit CCTrax website
10. Epitonic
Epitonic is a curated site that has an immense collection of free and legal MP3s available for streaming and downloading. Started in the year 1999, it is probably one of the oldest websites offering free MP3 online created by established, indie-leaning labels and artists.
Free House Music Websites
You can explore new tracks through its web-based audio stream and create your personalized playlist on the website by signing up. The site has been categorized according to labels, artists, and genres to help you discover good music.
Visit Epitonic website
11. YouTube
YouTube is one of the largest sites on the internet offering unlimited video streaming and many of us also use it as a music streaming service because it has almost all kinds of music in it.
House Music
But the reason I have placed it at the end is that obtaining songs from YouTube is tricky. Not all songs on YouTube are downloadable but you can search for songs by setting a Creative Commons license filter and the genre you want.
Music tracks with CC license are free and safe to download but depending on the license terms, you might need to credit the artist before using in your video or any other platform.
Visit YouTube website
Listen to free music
Premium music streaming services like Apple Music, Prime Music, Spotify, etc., also provide free trials for listening and downloading songs; you can try them out as well.
Coming back to completely free solutions, the above list contains the best sources where you can find an unlimited number of songs without any cost. However, I would like to clarify that not all musical tracks on these platforms are for free as some of them are paid and available only for free music streaming.
Download free music and start grooving!
One might argue why download free music when you can just stream it. Well, streaming online music is cool but what do you do when your mobile network connection or Wi-Fi is down? That’s where you need offline music, and the best part is you can carry your favorite tracks wherever you go without spending a single penny.
This is why I have listed down the aforementioned websites on the basis of ease of use and popularity. However, in my personal opinion, the audio section of the Internet Archive makes it the best free music download website because I can find almost every artist there. You are free to choose the one which suits you the best, so go ahead and explore these sites.
In case you didn’t like anything on these websites, here’s a list of best free radio apps where you can explore new music.
List of best websites to download Hindi songs for free and legally
The sites mentioned on this list mostly provide English MP3 songs and tracks with the exception of SoundCloud, which offers a small but decent collection of Hindi songs. Recently I found that a lot of readers search for free and legal sites to download Hindi songs as well. So I was thinking of covering that too in another article. Do let us know in the comment box whether you’d like us to cover Hindi songs websites as well!
Also Read: Free And Best Android Music Players