go Download Songbird best music library organizer / blogg scrubber for any type of music that uses search features from elbo and screemer searches as well as hype machine. Happy collecting!

-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) ""

Probably everyone knows about this.. it was floating around on the webs a while back, but it's a good query.

I know it's not exactly the same as what Ben is discussing here, but it's also a good vector for finding MP3s.

And it, err, won't only find *free* songs, but also "free" songs.

* Sorry, it's a Google query. Forgot to mention where to stick that search string.

How about the good old G2P?

@ScottRose: What's awesome about this is that in Firefox you can save it with a tag, like music. Then all you have to do is type music "search" in the address bar, and viola.

[sites.google.com]

SXSW lets you download all of the music from the official SXSW website, but this nice fellow did all the grunt work for us and put it together in a nice easy to download torrent.

Although this blog and podcast are geared toward teachers, Ben Hazzard has a deal with Iota publishing and posts an MP3 with each episode.

[pdtogo.com]

easy way:

1. download & install Greasemonkey with firefox
2. download & installHypemachine greasemonkey screipt
3. Head over to hypem.com, search and click on the diskette icon (save icon) to save the file as mp3.
4. Done

@the_gank: Still visit the site. Not only will you have a chance to explore other types of music you may be interested in, but you're giving the site traffic.

Another good method is to take whatever the album name is and google it with rapidshare or megaupload next to it:

Album name Rapidshare
Album name Megaupload

My wife runs Babble & Beat Magazine (babbleandbeat.com) it is a great source for links to free downloads and streaming music. It also has an ever changing links to official band sites which often feature free downloads.

Disclaimer: The recommended site is run by my wife! Moderators, if this violates the sites policies please feel free to remove this post.

I would never download the .flv of a music video I like off YouTube and use ffmpeg to convert it to mp3. Nope. Not me.

beemp3.com is the best.

[excavatedshellac.wordpress.com]

This is not good for new music, or classic rock, but a great source for interesting old 78s from around the world. Try something a little different.

Skreemr is one obvious route.

I would suggest that if you have a particular genre or genres of music you like, just search on that genre & "blog", and then follow the blogroll of anyone posting music. Most like-minded music blogs include links to each other.

In my case, I like 60s/70s psych, old blues and 70s/80s punk, all genres with loads of out of print stuff, most not effectively copyrighted by anyone in a position to enforce that. There is literally far music in all of those genres posted by collectors on the web than I could hope to download and listen to in a lifetime, and ironically most of it is far more enjoyable to me than what is commercially available.

www.musiclemon.com all the way for me. You can only download one song at a time without the website messing up though.

I don't understand how this could be considered legitimate or even legal. It's not any different from file sharing networks, is it? Not that I'm personally against it--I'm just surprised that the Consumerist would promote something like this.

@Henry Obialisi: that is what i do, or use filestube.com witch is a search engine for files but lately that site has been clogged by spyware.

I don't know about all of these sites, but the ones that Babble and Beat use are all legal. The bands use the free music as an attempt to promote themselves and their music. They hope that after you discover their music you will buy it or see them live. The vast majority of bands get virtually no support from their label. The promotion money kicks in when you already have a hit, and it leaves soon after it is off the charts.

@jrlcopy: I was wondering when the torrent would show up this year. I take it this is not the official one though.

@Oranges w/ Cheese: I use this and cutandpaste every time. How do you use a tag?

@goodstuffmaynard: It's LEGAL from these sites, but I wonder how many people who do this actually track down the bands they DO like later, or even read about them.

The commenters here and most of the Internet 'pundits'? Sure, they support music they like! The vast majority of the userbase? If it were up to them, being in a band would have to be your second job more so than it often is now.

Dropping the whole debate, if you find the bands you like online at least read about them on their blog and use DownThemAll! or something to grab the music while you give them the common courtesy of eyeballs.

@lakecountrydave:

Yup. It's not the same as filesharing when you're posting MP3s that have been freely given to you for that express purpose by the bands/labels in question (although doubtless there are those that do post copyrighted material without permission). Hype Machine and other aggregators just make for a simple way to search the MP3s that are out there for download, although of course they don't know an illegally-posted MP3 from a legit one.

@MsAnthropy:

(... although they can take a pretty good guess, I'm sure!)

I have heard (but never used) ahem, uh.. [skreemr.com] to save songs as mp3's and [zamzar.com] to grab videos and such from youtube.
I HEAR they are great.

@Henry Obialisi: i'll do the same thing in some situations, except a hair different

search google images for: artist album blogspot

it's especially easy if you know the album art

@uncle moe: * not exactly legit

@goodstuffmaynard: There are hundreds of thousands of years (no exaggeration!) of free music online that is either public domain, or is virtually so by dint of the fact that the artists are dead, the labels disbanded and/or the music is out of print. In many cases artists yielded control to labels that no longer exist.

If you want Top 40, it's likely going to be illegal. If you have musical tastes that are a bit more open, it's a big ol' free buffet out there and never really a reason to buy new music again.

The funny thing is that as a collector I still buy from used shops, flea markets etc.

@RouL HutchinsoN: I second that.

Pull up google, then type " blogspot" or " rapidshare"

@dlab: Argh... meant to say type "artistname albumname blogspot" or "artistname albumname rapidshare"

I usually just go to the band's official website. If they have streaming music you can often just start the song playing and then look through your browser cache for the biggest, most recent file and copy it to a separate folder and rename it.

@quizmasterchris: +1 for [skreemr.com] which is one of the search engines available in Songbird.

The only method needed to get music is this.
1) Go to Google blogs.
2) Type in the band name and album you're looking for (with quotes) like this: "The Shins - Oh, Inverted World"
3) Look for hits that end in '.blogspot' and give one a shot that looks like it's showing the track list and proper album name.
4) Look at the end of the page for "Download" links or Rapidshare, Mediafire, etc links.
5) Download and unzip

I can VERY RARELY not find music going this route, though on occasion it happens. Let me know how it goes.

Vote 4 my band here 4 warped tour:

[warped.battleofthebands.com]

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www.fearofnone.com