I’m aware there are a lot of pirates out there in the world, and I’m even more so aware of the problems/solutions they bring to many of our doorsteps. For one, the pirates are destroying the way the music industry works, in that downloading a song and not paying for it ever will cause that artist to be let go from the label. At the same time, a pirate that downloads a lot of music often times will pay back the artist better by going to a show or buy their merchandise.
However, I’m not going to debate the good/bad debate with you, nor do I really care if you are a pirate or not. But what I’d like to do today is to introduce you to a large, but relatively unknown site by the name of Jamendo.
You can’t judge a site without visiting it but Jamendo is one of those sites in my bookmarks I visit weekly. It is a great site, hosting all kinds of independent and different artists around the world. There are some from Canada and the US, some from Russia and Germany, others from Italy and Spain, and still others who hail from India! It is literally a taste of every country out there in the world. Then come the genres which range from Rap/Hip-Hop to Rock, Religious to Jazz, and Pop to Electronic. So no matter what your tastes are, there is rest assured, a band for that. They also have online “radio” stations you can tune into, as well as offering a full sample of an album for you to listen to online.
And this manages to get even better. Jamendo offers the full albums for download for free, in MP3 and OGG format. In both cases, you get a zip file with high quality music, a text file with a small amount of background on the artist, and high quality album art, all for free. Make sure you keep the speakers below 10 when you listen to the bands though… don’t want to miss out any of the other bands because one caught your eye and made you deaf because you turned it up too loud.
They also offer a chance to donate to the artist of your choice, a chance to post on the artist’s own dedicated forum hosted on Jamendo, even a chance to see if your new favourite band will be playing near you any time soon. So free music, great music, great selection, and a way to converse with your band of choice? What more could you ask for?
Jamendo presently indexes over 9,500 different artists, and over 20,000 albums, all available free for download at NO cost to you. If you’ve never tried out Jamendo, today might be the day you meet your new favourite band.
–Jamendo –
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