Continuing my look at sources for legal free music from
the Intertubes, this week: two bands from Germany and one from NY –all courtesy
of Jamendo.com. Jamendo claims to be the #1 online site for Creative Commons
music. The service goes back to about 2005. The music they provide is available
for download in mp3 and Ogg Vorbis formats, and they also stream music for
continuous listening via various radio channels: Rock, Jazz, Pop, World, Classical,
HipHop … Some of the tracks are professional and must be purchased, but most
are free for the taking – even without registering. (More often than not, I
back out when I find that I need to register/provide an email address. How
about you?)
Wikipedia says that more than 45,000 albums – *not*
individual tracks - had been uploaded as of 2011. The service is based out of
Luxembourg. Considering EU laws and policies protecting people as well as
businesses (no, a business is not a person), the TOS for Jamendo may have a
more solid standing related to your rights to your music than some US-based
services.
I am not aware of any policy the service employs towards
vetting the input/user uploads. They do say they gather/vet the best for their
radio channels, but even my random sampling of genres/files available for
download has netted some quality music. My experience with the quality of the
sounds from some other sites that offer free music has not been nearly as
positive. If I had a business and needed continuous free, streamed music, I
would seriously consider broadcasting their radio channels as ambience music
throughout my store. (I see after I wrote this that they have a section labeled
“background music for your shop or business!)
A small random sampling of downloads this week mostly
focused on pop/rock to get you started:
Ella Blooma, a band out of Dresden, Germany, tells us on the
MySpace page (they also have a Facebook) that their music is pop (“Ella Blooma machen Popmusik“). The
song is
Christopher Squier is an indie musician out of Buffalo, NY.
The track from his EP “Flowers Beneath the Ashes” is on the list of most listened
to tunes at Jamendo:
Trick Seventeen, another German band continuing my rock/pop
focus this post, with a rocking number from their “We Own The Night” album called
Privacy notice: I have both MySpace and Facebook logins. As
much as we have heard about the decline of MySpace, I have to admit that
accessing band info via MySpace is a lot less painful/invasive than via
Facebook . Many of these bands have accounts at both, but MySpace allows you to
check them out without logging in to your account.
