There’s a number of great free music download sites out there and Jamendo is no exception.
Jamendo bills itself as a “…new model for artists to promote, publish, and be paid for their music.”
Now when they say “be paid for,” they mean that hopefully by downloading and listening to an artist’s music, users will decide to purchase more albums or tracks or simply make donations to help support the band. They also see it as opportunity for users to spread the word about the band amongst their friend so that they may also make similar contributions to the bands efforts.
Artists distribute their music under a Creative Commons license which allows you to freely download, share and even remix the music that’s made available on the site.
Jamendo is both BitTorrent and eMule compatible, making for more P2P network options that users can choose from.
For artists, the site allows an interesting and advanced new method for music distribution that weeds out exclusive intermediaries and critics that may otherwise prevent an artists from reaching the public ears.
From the site:
As an artist, you will have a personal webspace hosted at jamendo. This includes: links to your creations and your official web site, forum, photo webgallery, announcements of your concerts, reviews written by listeners, …
jamendo also features many opt-in programs for artists : print your flyers, accept donations from listeners on your paypal account, subscribe to press partnerships,
In a nutshell, jamendo is :
- A nonexclusive platform : you remain the owner of your music, and you can still distribute it by any other means at your disposal. jamendo has a strong commitment of complementarity with traditional practices like CD sales.
- A zero-cost platform : there is no fee for artists using our service. We provide hosting for free. P2P distribution keeps our costs at a very low level. We just include some non-intrusive advertising on the website and in streamed music to make our platform sustainable.
- A free platform : you can stop the distribution of your music on jamendo at any time. Publishing music on jamendo does not forbid you to sign a future exclusive contract with a records company.
Here’s also a few recent statistics about Jamendo below.
So what kind of artists and genres are available to download?
Jamendo has everything from rock to electronic jazz, dubstyle to funk.
I’ve listened to several dozen of the artists already and many of them are pretty decent, if not great. As we all know, sometime stuff is free for reason, and usually free music is terrible to listen to but, some of the stuff on Jamendo is pretty darn good I must admit.
One of the good artists is Revolution Void, which bills itself as “electronic breakbeat jazz”
To help you find new artists worth listening to there’s a “Reviews” section that allows users to both rate and comment on available artists and albums.
Here’s one of the reviews for Revolution Void.
When you decide to play an artists tracks it streams them via the sites’s “jamplayer.”
If you decide to download a particular album it’s just as easy.
After selecting the “Download’ link, choose what file-sharing network, BitTorrent or eMule, that you wish to use.
Another awesome download to listen to is “The Wired CD.” It has tracks from The Beastie Boys, Spoon, Dan The Automator and more.
Beastie Boys – Now Get Busy
David Byrne – My Fair Lady Zap Mama – Wadidyusay?
My Morning Jacket – One Big Holiday
Spoon – Revenge!
Gilberto Gil – Oslodum
Dan The Automator – Relaxation Spa Treatment
Thievery Corporation – DC 3000
Le Tigre – Fake French
Paul Westerberg – Looking Up In Heaven
Chuck D With Fine Arts Militia – No Meaning No
The Rapture – Sister Saviour (Blackstrobe Remix)
Cornelius – Wataridori 2
For all of you out there who are always looking for LEGAL downloads Jamendo’s the site for you. For those of you who rely on “alternative methods,” it’s a still a nice site to grab some albums you may otherwise have never heard of before, or also to get without any of the usual share-ratio headaches.
The album above, “The Wired CD,” shows the time spent checking it out can be worthwhile.
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Great Site! Thanks