Streetlight Manifesto

Punk is one of my favorite genres not only for the down-to-earth messages and upbeat rhythms but also because it is one of the easiest genres to find free music for. I could fill this site with just free punk music (and I might...) and I thought I'd start with one of my favorites. Streetlight Manifesto lies somewhere in between the classification for punk with their pounding sound and lyrical content and ska with their powerful and ever-present horn section.

Their label Victory Records is offering 3 mp3s from 2 separate albums. Their earlier album "Everything Goes Numb" has both "Everything Went Numb" and "The Saddest Song" while their newer album "Somewhere in The Between" has the single "We Will Fall Together." Another site offers a song off of their newest album consisting of various cover songs. Definitely check out "Everything Went Numb" and "We Will Fall Together" and enjoy the music video to the latter song below. Great stuff...

TV, Commercial, and Game Music

To make up for only having one song in my last update, I'm going BIG! I know a lot of people spend a lot of time and money looking for songs from TV shows or videogames (myself included) and often end up disappointed with the results. Thanks to TelevisionTunes.com you may never have to go anywhere else!! The site contains just about every theme song you can think of and a ton of movie themes and songs within shows as well. Most of the music is ripped so the quality can be spotty but most are well up to par. None of the content is professional so if you want the best quality, track down a real cd that has what you are looking for.

And to sweeten the deal, several sister sites have been made including Video Game music (http://gamethemesongs.com/), Commercials (http://tvadsongs.com/), Sport Themes (http://footballfightmusic.com/), and every ridiculous quote ever said by Robin in the old 1960s Batman TV Show (http://holysmokesbatman.com/.) Do note that these are all rips and not the originals!!! Enjoy!

Barenaked Ladies

I didn't think that I would be able to really talk about my FAVORITE BAND on this site without just ranting and not offering any music. Thank goodness for Amazon proving me wrong!! Almost everyone knows BNL for their singles "One Week", "Pinch Me", or "If I Had A Million Dollars" but not many people seem to know them beyond that. BNL just released their newest album "All In Good Time" as a four man band (now that the lead singer is gone due to disagreements and drug charges 2 years ago.) Fans of BNL can find this album to be completely polarizing - meaning that they either love the new direction or scream for the old stuff. I personally really like it even though it is very different and has a strong indie vibe running through the album. Amazon is offering one of the better tracks for free here and I highly recommend you check it out. At one point I could have offered a BNL podcast off iTunes and a full recording of their first concert as a 4 man group but both have been removed... Oh well, enjoy the music vid to the newest single "You Run Away" that is easily the best song of the album.

UPDATE: The song has been removed by Amazon. I will always be on the lookout for more free music from BNL (even though I now have every studio album!!!!) and will update you as soon as there is something worth posting. Sorry...

Getting the Most out of Itunes

Almost everyone uses iTunes as their go-to source for music and almost everyone knows about the free weekly singles (If you didn't know, then why? Home page of iTunes at the bottom... Two singles and a music video available every week.) But what a lot of people don't know is that there are other legal ways to get free music from iTunes.

Start with facebook. "Wait, Facebook?" you might be asking, "What madness be this?" iTunes has a facebook page with special promotional packages of free music. They always seem to have from 1-3 packs of 15-25 song downloads available through the iTunes store. They offer all kinds of genres and themes from holidays to seasonal to genre specific. As of the time of this posting, they have a "Soul" Pack and an Indie Sampler. I would skip the soul pack unless you're really into that kind of music and strongly consider listening to the Indie Pack. Even if you don't have a facebook, I would consider making one to get in on these deals. They seem to switch each pack out after about a month...

The other (somewhat sneakier) option is podcasts. Podcasts are always free and some offer music clips or full songs or albums. Searching for specific bands (the bigger, the better) will often pull up something useful whether it be an interview, a band specific podcast, or as a featured artist or guest appearance. I've found a couple gems in doing these searches that I will share later. There is an extra trick that you can pull when using these podcasts but it falls into the realm of "questionable." Most podcasts can be converted into regular mp3s through some simple editing. A program like Garageband (standard on macs) makes it really easy to drop, trim, remove video (if there), and export to iTunes in the quality level and file type that you desire. Note that some podcasts apparently have protection against conversion. Have fun and enjoy!

Your Heart (Songs To Wear Pants To)

I didn't think it would be so soon until I got to revisit an artist that I already covered... I've already recommended Andrew Huang's website Songs to Wear Pants To in an earlier entry and he's been posting a lot of great new songs but that isn't why I'm mentioning him again. If you haven't checked his site yet, then you should. NOW!! He is one of the 5 internet based artists that I regularly check in on every week (my I5) with Goot and Josh Woodward being 2 others (other 2 featured soon.)

Andrew also leads up a full band called "Your Heart" that just released their newest album "August." You're not going to be getting that album for free but he just released a free EP with songs cut from the album and I love it! Why these songs got cut from the album I'll never know... Definitely check out "The River and The Valley", "Love #1", and "Sadly." No videos for this stuff though, so sorry about that.

Also wanted to mention that the music video he was fundraising for (the song "Never") got fully sponsored and will be happening. Can't wait!

Goot

Yay!! I finally get to mention Goot! Bumped into his music doing searches long ago and have been following him ever since. He is an amazing pop singer and also incredibly talented on the piano doing tons of his own music and covers of several other pop hits. That voice... so infectious. He made me actually enjoy to "I Want It That Way" after years of blocking it out or singing the Weird Al lyrics ("Ebay") over top of the music.

Right now he has a full album of his own music available here and four free cover songs available on his website including songs from Jack's Mannequin, Train, Brian Adams, and Jonas Brothers. All killer music! I actually have another album of his early work that has since been removed. Keep an eye on his purevolume profile, his myspace, and his facebook since he is very responsive and entertaining and will probably be posting more music in the future. I just can't pick a single vid so here are some of my favs. Enjoy!!!