Site of the Moment
I listen to quite a diverse selection of music. Anything from Kid Rock to Billy Joel, Alanis Morissette to Duran Duran, Hard Metal to Classical. But I’m always looking to expand my music listening horizons. A few months ago, I found one site that allowed me to do just that, and it was 100% Free and Legal.
Jamendo is a community site of Creative Commons licensed music, which means that everything here is free to be downloaded and distributed.
Jamendo houses a large collection of music posted by the artists. Every genre you can think of, and some you may never heard of, is represented. While you won’t find the latest mainstream (read: RIAA/RIAA-like company-controlled) albums, there are many songs and full albums to be downloaded. 3831 full albums to be exact.
Admittedly, there is a lot of stuff I’m not too into, and a good portion of the music with vocals is in another language than English, but there are quite a few gems you may never have heard about without Jamendo. In fact, I have found a few gems myself. I discovered one of my new favorite groups through Jamendo, The TenGooz,. I would recommend anyone who likes funky-ish music to check them out – my recommendation is their Inertia album.
You have a few choices in the way you can listen to the music. You can stream the music, or you can download it through a Torrent or eMule. When downloading, there is usually an array of different bitrates. The most common I’ve found are 192kbps MP3 and between 200-300kbps Ogg Vorbis.
Of course, Jamendo is also there to help the artists. While you don’t have to, you can donate to your favorite band to support them. You can also check out (if applicable) when and where the band/artist is having a concert, among other information pertaining to the artists. And Jamendo is open to anyone to submit their music, as long as it’s under a CC license. So if you’re a music artist and interested in sharing your music get on Jamendo!
Site of the Moment: Jamendo
