ok, just got a new computer and can now burn cd’s for the first time in my life.
where can i find the free music?
i don’t want to file-share or anything like that, i just want to download songs and make some cd’s for personal listening pleasure. is there anyplace i can get free songs?
Sure. MP3.com is chock full of free music to download.
There’s also the Classical Music Archive
Finally, there’s Buymusic.com. It’s not free, but songs and CDs are pretty cheap (usuall $0.99 per song and under $10 for a CD) and you can make multiple copies.
All these sites provide legal downloads. Most other downloads are not. You don’t want to act like the record companies and rip off your favorite musicians, do you?
Check out these guys: http://magnatune.com/
They’re not evil, the artists benefit, you can set your own price within reason, and the music is pretty good. I bought 3 “albums” from em yesterday. It’s not absolutely free, but it’s better than supporting the RIAA bastards.
Best place to find new and exciting music on the web.
Let me know if you want any recommendations, I would be happy to provide some.
If you want to stick to purely legal stuff, I’d try checking out the webpages of labels that you like. I know lots of indie ones have samples of their artists up there.
The majors aren’t so friendly.
My hero! What an amazing musical resource! I spent hours on that site last night, downloading new songs on my dial-up modem without fear or guilt. It has a lot of bands I love on there, and even more I’m sure I will soon enough. Thanks for passing that along!
Glad to be of help.
The amount of good bands on Epitonic is staggering, here are a couple of choice tracks:
Sleater-Kinney: ‘Oh’ and ‘All Hands On The Bad One’
Make Up: ‘C’mon Let’s Spawn’ and ‘Born On The Floor’
The Constantines: ‘St. You’
Ted Leo/Pharmacists: ‘Under The Hedge’
And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead: ‘Mistakes And Regret’
Sonic Youth: ‘Dirty Boots’
At The Drive-In: ‘One Armed Scissor’ and ‘Pattern Against User’
Mission of Burma: ‘Peking Spring’
The Mountain Goats: ‘Family Hapiness’
Bad Brains: ‘Pay To Cum’
http://www.machinaesupremacy.com/downloads.htm
Videogame themed metal 
don’t get much better.
I had a good time with The Internet Underground Music Archive circa 1997. (Suffering with the dial-up connection and all.)
I had forgotten about it until I saw a link to Dokaka on Memepool a while back. Dokaka is some insane Japanese acapella covers of classic rock, metal, and alt tunes. My favourites are a couple of King Crimson covers, although I guess the kids might prefer Smells Like Teen Spirit. In the other direction, there’s some Stevie Wonder. It’s… …unique.
There’s a lot of more straightforward stuff in a wide variety of genres at IUMA.com, of course.