11 Best Places to Search Free Music

by Joey on Apr 12, 2007 • 5:14 am 22 Comments

I wrote earlier about the death of Singingfish media search, an amazing resource of online music. Since then I’ve been seeking alternatives to singingfish.com and I’ve got 11 solutions that will help you find that free mp3 that got lost in the interweb. Starting in order from average to best (1 is average, 11 is best). I tested the searches using the technique I dub the “Paul Westerberg method” (the standard of not using today’s most well-known band, but not being too obscure either).

Seekasong – Working mp3 links, but the database isn’t extensive. There is some things to find, but only if you aren’t picky about specific songs. Includes standard search and viewing artist by first letter.
Bloggdigger – It’s not easy to filter out podcasts and random files. It’s either a hit or miss with this engine. Some links are down or inactive.
free mp3 downloads – Despite its pathetic excuse for a url with a double hyphen, the site locates a decent number of the latest mp3s with quick download links with no cumbersome multi-click navigation. They note that songs normally don’t last more than 24 hours, so you may end up with broken links here and there, but keep trying every so often. Another downside is it also shows less useful .ra and .wma files.
skreemr – Supports Google style searches and the links are regularly checked to make sure they work.
project playlist – Social playlist site with good mp3 results, all seem to be working. No direct download links available, but you can visit the original page or middle click the link script in Firefox, then erase the javascript from the new tab and then you have the mp3 url.
Digital Audio Search – The great feature here is filtering certain bitrates. I prefer at least 128k for listenable quality. Search the web for links to only mp3 audio files. Easy navigation and most of the links I clicked were still good.
Dogpile Audio Search – Search engines nicely piled into one search (not just audio either). Plenty of quality music to be found here. Dogpile apparently kept results from singingfish (I don’t know if it retained the whole database though). When you search, it says “Now Searching: Yahoo! Search, Singingfish, And More.” Sweet! I just hope they don’t erase their findings on singingfish. Sooner or later, many singingfish files will be outdated, but hopefully they will keep valid files.
elbo.ws – Most comprehensive music blog aggregator. Search and browse thousands of music posts, but be sure to make sure the mp3 checkbox is ticked next to the search box. Results will only link to blog posts (you’ll have to find the link on the blog itself), but the mp3 info is displayed as well as the name of the blog. Some hard to find stuff lurks in these waters.
Sideload – I don’t know how they are getting away with this one- tons of popular music as well as rarer material. You can easily stream the mp3 on the page, or click the track for details to download or visit the source.
Mp3Realm – Despite being less attractive as sideload, I found more results per artist here. Plus, I really enjoy that they let you know the link status (working or not working)
exploseek – An open index seeker that finds web public directories of files. It takes a minute to get familiar with, but you can really find just about any file imaginable if you are willing to look around. The method here is that it uses different mainstream search engines with special search tag operators, then adds your basic search terms. They give the option to search an ordered phrase (like full name of a band, or song title) with “Smart Exact” or just find “All Words.” The other regular search engines like Alltheweb and Sogou are not effective, except Mp3Realm and maybe eSpew.

Hopefully you can get what you need with the tools above. eSnips is not a music search site, but more of a social uploading site for all sorts of files. There are some mp3s lying around if you are interested. As for Singingfish, I believe it still integrated with AOL’s Audio Search, but it’s still ridiculously stripped of format and duration filters and slowly losing the strength singingfish had. And I doubt it will get updated, so the part of AOL that doesn’t contain Singingfish will just ruin the original results.

Why only web based media search? Because it’s possible. You don’t need to get spied on or get in trouble by BitTorrent/RIAA for using torrents (not to mention slow downloads, bandwidth problems, etc.). Usenet just seem too much trouble for the average http-centric surfer. Beyond search engines, everyone can choose what they like on the hugest list of audio you can download online. There’s more where that came from.

22 comments

Mike says:

May 9, 2007

These are the best MP3 Search Engines out there.
http://espew.com
http://musicat.espew.com

http://eSpew.com allows search, locate, listen and/or download mp3’s. They are the “Google” of MP3’s.

http://Musicat.eSpew.com – Allows more than eSpew cause you can create online playlists, save playlists, save searchs, etc.

liquid parallax says:

May 10, 2007

@Mike: Your comment was held in moderation for some reason. Espew is not really the best, nor the ‘google’ of mp3s in my opinion. The interface is not so great and there were a few dead links the last time I checked, but it’s still fairly useful. On my list, I’d say the last 5 are all you really need; and espew is another option on exploseek anyway.

My list still stands, but thanks for your opinion.

james says:

May 21, 2007

Here’s another you can add to the list: http://skreemr.com
Not sure if it’s the “Google” of mp3 search engines, but it does support Google style searches and the links are regularly checked to make sure they work!

thanks for the list!

liquid parallax says:

May 22, 2007

Thanks james, I’ll add this to the list.

steve says:

May 31, 2007

Hi liquid parallax

Great list, im linking to this from our new picture MP3 playlist compiler.

http://www.myplaylist.biz/music/search.php

keep up the good work
steve

deptaro says:

Jul 11, 2007

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â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘â–‘ UPER

liquid parallax says:

Jul 12, 2007

@departo: are you sleepy?

I’m tempted to delete that, but for some reason I like it. (I’ll just trim it down some)

hevnsnt says:

Jul 12, 2007

What no http://www.g2p.org?

liquid parallax says:

Jul 12, 2007

@8: actually knew about that one, but thanks for the reminder. It’s essentially the same as exploseek (the google indexer) except with a search for megaupload for albums.

Ultimate List of Free & Legal mp3 Music Downloads- liquid parallax's Blog says:

Aug 4, 2007

[…] than the quadrillion that I found. If you are looking for something in specific, you can use the best mp3 search engines or you can see if it’s listed or referenced here by searching within this page. Press CTRL+F, […]

Store says:

Aug 15, 2007

Thank you for good job! Hello. ,

pao says:

Sep 18, 2007

oh ty, this mean alot to me man. i hope u know. thank you so much. this page help me alot after singingfish die. thanlx man i just want u to know how thankful i am. thank you

cpost says:

Feb 6, 2008

add straighthits.net to your db 🙂

chris says:

May 7, 2008

ooh thanks. I like a lot of music that’s not-so-mainstream, so it’s really difficult to find in music stores 🙁 but this is really good, I found exploseek and skreemr most useful. Thanks Thanks!!

Cliffe says:

May 26, 2008

Last month I released Politics Apocalypse, a full length album using the creative commons licence attribution 3.0. This allows you to use the music however you please (including in commercial projects) so long as you give credit. Since last month we have had over 3000 album downloads.

We accept donations, and we have a name-your-own-price CD; which is a unique concept where you can name your own price (starting at cost price) for a CD. We have had some orders and heaps of positive feedback.

The album is political post-industrial rock with an interesting mix of classical instruments, guitars, electronic beats, and a dash of aussie hip-hop.

You can download the whole 11 track album for free at our website.
http://www.politicsapocalypse.com

jack says:

Dec 12, 2008

hey another great music search engine is http://www.iwantmuzik.com , here you can find many songs even those not so popular, you can listen to them and download them.

Enhance your Music Searching- liquid parallax's Blog says:

Dec 26, 2008

[…] for free music â€“ I’ve done it before, but things change and I get smarter […]

kyle says:

Jan 10, 2009

check out http://www.iWantMuzik.com as well it has a ton of MP3’s you can download

tuner says:

Feb 3, 2009

I use iWantMuzik as they seem to have a awesome variety

XxX says:

May 28, 2009

Hi guys just try http://www.mp3.baidu.com. Its a Chinese site but very Effective and the search is also good b’coz they use all big chinese internet servers like sogou n gougou. So why don’t you give it a try.

free music :) says:

Aug 27, 2009

not listed http://pepperonimp3.com/

sitios para descargar musica gratis says:

Dec 10, 2010

[…] he encontrado. Si usted está buscando algo en específico, puede utilizar el mejor mp3 motores de búsqueda o ver si aparece o se hace referencia aquí al buscar en esta […]

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