Music provides us with a great way to relax and enhance our day to day life. Not only that, but it brings us into a peaceful state and makes us feel a lot better and suitable for any type of work. While we can always buy the album of those artists we love, we can easily listen to music online if we have an internet connection. Not only that, but there are numerous free music download sites that allow you to download music from them at any given time. We will try to cover 20 of the most popular music downloading sites that you can find online.
• MP3.com
Mp3.com is just a great source for various music genres. It’s one of the oldest free music download websites out there and has numerous songs to download. Yes, you might not be able to download albums, but you can download individual songs, which are a great way to preview a certain album and see if it’s worth buying.
Pros: One of the oldest music download sites, offers a lot of variety.
Cons: Despite its age, it has a small database when compared to newer sites.
• Jamendo
Jamendo provides royalty free music that you can download at any given time. You might need to purchase a commercial license if you want to make money off this music, but if you download it for your own listening pleasure, you are free to do so.
Pros: The discover mode allows you to find new music easily. The integrated player works great and you can add music to your account as well for listening to it in the future.
Cons: The database is a little smaller than you might expect, with only 400000 titles.
• Freesound
Freesound is great for people that want to download music samples which they can include in their own projects. Not only these sounds are available at high quality, but you can easily download them as many times as you need.
Pros: Each sound has its own set of tags which provides you with the means of reaching it faster.
Cons: You need to login in order to download anything. Database is comprised only of sound samples and some of them aren’t high quality.
• Public Domain 4U
Public Domain 4U is a free music download site that features only public domain music that can easily be downloaded without hassle. It features numerous popular artists but also some amazing historical recordings, making it the perfect venue for people that have a wide interest in historical music.
Pros: Provides a window to the past with some amazing tunes. Sound quality is good.
Cons: It’s only a database that links to other websites. Layout is broken under some browsers.
• Free Music Archive
Here you can access tons of free music, placed into multiple categories that you can browse freely. You can view music by checking artists, tracks, albums and genres, but also by date added and other criteria. There are tons of songs at your disposal, so you’re bound to find something you like here.
Pros: You can sort music by curator or genre. There are lots of songs that you can listen to and each one has its own dedicated page. Tracks can be embedded to other websites.
Cons: You can’t see the progress bar for the songs, so you can’t browse it any way you like.
• Bumfoot
Bumfoot focuses on a certain type of music, which is trance, techno and electronic. You can check out a large album/song database here, which is great to say the least, especially if you are passionate for such musical genres.
Pros: You can browse the website based on releases and artists. There are quite a lot of tracks on the website.
Cons: The lack of a dedicated player is immediately felt when you visit the website. You can’t play the songs on the website, only in your web browser or dedicated third party applications.
• incompetech
Unlike other free music download sites, this music download website not only has a much better layout, but it also brings a huge database of amazing songs. Each song is accompanied by a description, but the downside here is that if you plan to use these songs on a commercial level, you do need to copy and paste the ownership text in the credits.
Pros: Sound quality is great and there are numerous genres on the website to fulfill the needs of just about anyone that browses it looking for quality music.
Cons: Each file comes under a certain license that you need to take into account before downloading and using it in other projects.
• Audionautix
What makes this free music download site stand out is the good player bundled with the website. On the other hand, there aren’t that many songs here, but it’s still good enough if you are looking for some great pieces of music.
Pros: The site provides copyright free music.
Cons: Database is very small, with only a few tracks per genre. No progress bar or player, so you’ll have a hard time finding out where the music comes from if you have tons of tabs opened in your browser.
• Noisetrade
Noisetrade has a wide range of music genres, and it expands with more and more albums added each and every day. You can leave a tip for the artists that upload the music here, if you want. Or you can share the page to your social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter. Everyone is a winner at NoiseTrade, which surely makes it one of my favorites.
Pros: Website design is incredibly beautiful and makes it very easy to browse through all the functions. Has a wide range of music available. Noisetrade allows you to connect with the artist’s website and social media accounts.
Cons: Shows a progress bar when you listen to a song, but you can’t browse through the song, it’s only for display purposes.
• Soundcloud
Soundcloud is one of the best free music download sites in the world. Not only it allows you to upload music freely, making it a YouTube for music, but it also a good way of promoting new music creators as well. People can like and share the music, and they can even access the website of each artist.
Pros: One of the most complete music databases in the world, with millions of existing tracks and thousands added daily. It has a very easy to use interface and simple design. You can browse through the songs and they even remain in the background after you leave their page, ensuring that you get a great musical experience.
Cons: Not all songs can be downloaded from this platform.
• Soundowl
You can browse Soundowl at any given time while the music is still playing. This makes it the perfect occasion to relax yourself while also finding new music. You can download the desired song just by clicking on the song name, something that makes the download process a lot easier and fun indeed.
Pros: Good music quality. You can create your own account and favorite songs as you see fit, then download them. Include a player that allows you to browse the songs when you want.
Cons: Not that many tracks for each band, could use a little more diversity.
• Madeloud
Madeloud is a website that promotes mainly indie music. So, if you are an indie music lover, you are bound to find something interesting and new for you here. You can gain access to new albums and download them for new free, if you need.
Pros: A wide range of indie music and fast download speeds. Includes a dedicated player.
Cons: Only indie music can be downloaded here. Website layout can be a little misguiding at times.
• iBeat
This musid download website brings various loops and beats for free. They are great for integrating in your musical projects, and are available under a great license, Creative Commons. We actually enjoy using this website ourselves from time to time, as you can find some good music here.
Pros: Brings both beats and music alike. Has a wide selection of songs as well. Fast downloads.
Cons: It can get a little hard to browse all the items since the interface can be quite misleading.
• Audiofarm
This is basically what the name says, a farm full of music. You can find just about anything you want here, from chillout music to fast paced songs. Everything you want is at your disposal, which is great. In addition, downloading is very easy, and you don’t even need an account to grab the songs you want.
Pros: You can create a playlist, share music, embed player. The website has a large number of tunes.
Cons: Not all songs can be downloaded from the website. Some songs have bad quality.
• ArtistServer
Another independent music jewel. Here you can find the next, upcoming stars and their new musical achievements. Downloads are available free of charge, of course, and you have numerous genres to choose from.
Pros: Sound quality is over 128kbps. You can create a favorite list and download all items you can listen to.
Cons: Not that many genres are present here. The interface is badly designed and it doesn’t say what song is currently playing.
• Musopen
Musopen is the place for instrumental music greatness. It features just about any type of musical instrument you can imagine. In addition, the music can be sorted by composer, instrument but even period of time if you want.
Pros: Lots of tracks and great website design that makes very easy to browse and download files. Has a shuffle component that allows you to find new music.
Cons: Sound quality can suffer at times.
• Bandcamp
Yes, this one might not have only free music, but there are still numerous pieces of free music available here. You can donate to the artists if you want, but these pieces are still available free of charge.
Pros: A great interface and tons of songs, with thousands added daily. Includes a new section and it’s browsed by both artists and fans alike.
Cons: Not all items are available for free. Some people have experienced download problems even after purchasing songs.
• MP3Lemon
MP3Lemon allows you to download just about any music available out there, as it has a huge database of old as well as new music. Be it dance, trance, soundtracks or rock, they have it all. The download process is fast, and browsing the website is very easy as well. A great choice for music enthusiasts that don’t want to download their music, instead they want to listen to it on their PC/Mac.
Pros: Has a mix of both old and new songs. You can preview the songs before downloading them, and you can also download full albums. Sound quality is great.
Cons: It can be a little hard sometimes to find the song you want and the download links seems to stop appearing on some websites.
• IMSLP
A huge database of musical genres that you can download without hassle. It’s really recommended for just about anyone, as long as you have the time to browse the database and see if there’s something you like.
Pros: Open source music library available in many countries. Great selection of musical pieces.
Cons: You get only open source tracks, new tracks can’t be found here.
• Beemp3s
You can find just about any music here. What makes it stand out is that you can see the last 200 searches and analyze what is popular at that certain time. And that’s about all that makes it stand out, the other features can also be found on other websites. However, it does offer good download speeds, which is really important for a music download website.
Pros: Shows you the last searches. Allows you to browse the website via tags, even has a mobile version.
Cons: Sometimes points to download links from websites whose legality is questionable.