The great thing about digital music collections is their fluidity. Whereas you may have been happy with a small-medium sized CD collection, the ubiquitous nature of MP3s and cheap storage means that for many, their MP3 collections would fill rooms of CDs. Yet we still go for more, but you needen’t resort to illegal activity. Here at SnakeOil Labs is a list of our favourite free music resources.
Disclaimer: Some of these sources guarantee legal downloads, others (such as the aggregators and blogs) can’t. SnakeOil Labs is dead set against piracy, and firmly believes that every time you commit an act of piracy, god kills a kitten. Please think of the kittens.
The first thing that anyone should do is Hit the hut. The Tofu Hut is a music listings blog that comes up with some real diamonds. It’s also the host of This big freakin’ list of music blogs, a more refined wiki-fied version can be found here.
If that doesn’t satisfy your insatiable lust for music, try Del.icio.us, where you can find loads of mp3s using a filetype search (betcha didn’t know you could do that, huh? Elbo.ws is an interesting mix of eclectic music blogs that has a great top 10 if like me you’re not up to date on the latest teen angst rock and avant garde. Speaking of eclectic, Kofi’s Hat has a great post on a few of the 89 albums you should have that contains some real gems.
Of course, if it’s more popular acts you’re after, why not try Amazon’s free music downloads. It’s updated every 6 hours and features all kinds of music from The Strokes to Depeche Mode. Hey, don’t tell Jeff Bezos, but there’s an unofficial RSS feed for you to subscribe to.
Of course, if it’s live music you’re after, check out the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive is a generally fantastic resource, especially if you’re into OpenSource Audio or that Old Time Music. If you want to listen to something that might not normally creep into your collection, try Al Jolson’s collection.
If like me you’re a twentysomething slowly waking up to the fact that you’re no longer cool, suave and trendy, you might want to at least make it look as though you know about the latest music. Epitonic is a great collection of upcoming cutting edge music. I recommend checking out the Big Shots section if your music collection’s looking dated. Instant street cred is just a few clicks away.
So there you have it, our favourite links to resources for MP3s that don’t suck. I find that some of the sites above contain things that I wouldn’t already listen to, and downloading the top 10 lists from these sites to an MP3 player gives me something fresh and different to listen to on the train, whilst making me less of a target for those damned kids down the road who make fun of me for listening to Pink Floyd 
If you have a favourite (legal) MP3 resource then let us know in the comments below.
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