Free Music… That’s Guilt-Free
Just the other week I somehow discovered a site called Jamendo (probably from an otherwise lame Digg “article”), which offers lots of great music. The catch? Well, it’s free! And I don’t just mean, “I use Limewire to download the newest Britney Spears album” free. All music on Jamendo is released under a Creative Commons license, which just means it’s good for everybody, and you don’t have to feel guilty downloading dozens of albums over BitTorrent at one time.
Free music often has the impression of bad music, but that’s certainly not the case this time. I’ve found a good handful of really decent artists on the site that I still listen to on a regular basis. That’s especially good considering I tend to limit myself to one genre.
Some of the artists worth mentioning are:
Bruce H. McCosar, Collectif Terra Incognita (although I don’t see them listed now though for some reason), JT Bruce, magnetic, Revolution Void, Silence, The Starving Time
It’s also worth mentioning that, unlike most popular artists, the majority on Jamendo seem down to Earth. The best example of this is Bruce H. McCosar who keeps an interesting blog about his process of recording albums and all the behind-the-scenes information. It’s really a great read for anyone interested in the personal side of the recording process. I have to say that he was much of the inspiration for starting this blog again to write a bit about my recording as well. He was even nice enough to send me a nice personal e-mail after I left him some kudos on his blog.
I’m sure that once I’m done recording my album, hopefully sometime late in the summer, I’ll be posting it on Jamendo.
February 1st, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Andrew–
Thanks so much for the mention–it’s good to know you’ve been inspired, because that’s what I’m all about. (In my day job, I’m a sixth grade science teacher.)
I’ve got a new album coming out on Jamendo this week called “handmade”, and I’m also doing FAWM this year (February Album Writing Month).
So once you get the recording bug, you’ll probably be like me–all over the place. Good luck getting your music together, and follow the advice they give on Wikipedia–”Be Bold.”
–BMC