Hey SongsBrewers,

Our readership will undoubtedly include creatives of all kinds and people who love music discovery.

It used to be commonplace to find something you liked and take it; Limewire, Napster, PirateBay, and even Spotify started out in the pirating business 🏴‍☠️. But we’ve moved on from that (haven’t we?).

You might not be able to use Drake’s latest release or a new bop from the charts, but you can access millions of songs for free. If anything, skipping the big chart hits makes you unique. And isn’t that the whole point of creating?

Anyway, on with it!

Housekeeping: As always, your support is highly appreciated. Some links in the newsletter may be affiliate links. If you buy something using the links, we make a few cents—at no extra cost to you. 

Free Music Archive

This is a great resource for free music—but only MP3s. You’ll need an account, which not all users want to set up, but once you sign up, you have access to a huge library.

You can choose from 16 genres, including: international, pop, jazz, experimental, and blues. Not everything on the site is high quality, so listening before downloading is a big bonus.

A thing to love about FMA is that you can also select music based on usage to get the licensing right; you’ll know for sure if you can remix or alter the music, and you’ll be able to credit it correctly. Great stuff.

For those who know their project runs along commercial lines, you can opt for Pro (which is paid) and have access to royalty-free music. Suitable for use on platforms like YouTube.

Jamendo Music

Jamendo is brilliant for music discovery and music for projects. You can get started pretty quickly with music discovery. Select the Start button, which takes you to a page packed with songs. Each song will tell you what you can and can’t do. For personal use, you can download it straight away.

You have a library of 220,000+ tracks for commercial projects; the rights are included. Licensing plans come with national or international options and have licensing options for big sites like Netflix and Disney+. Their license plans offer ‘unlimited’ tracks for download and licensing but a 50-track-per-day limit on the license itself (this means the certificate).

Pixabay

Pixabay is packed with music that you can use for commercial or personal use - all for free. As they put it, ‘no copyright royalty-free audio tracks.’ The library is extensive, with 94,124+ tracks available.

The options for refining are very easy to use and include options like duration, genre, mood, and movement. Although the site is better known for its images, there is a lot of free music here. You might need to dig for a while to find something that works for you.

SoundClick

‘Stream music, free downloads, buy beats & sell beats.’

SoundClick is one of the original platforms for independent music discovery, it launched back in 1997. It offers a mix of free and paid tracks, allowing artists to upload and distribute their music globally. While its design might feel like a throwback, SoundClick is an incredible resource for music for projects or discovery.

Like others on the list, the library grows pretty rapidly.

BandCamp

Bandcamp is a powerhouse for independent artists and music enthusiasts alike. The platform allows artists to sell their music directly to fans (hurrah), cutting out middlemen and giving creators a bigger slice of the pie (and who doesn’t love that?).

While the primary model is pay-what-you-want or fixed pricing, many artists also offer tracks or albums for free, which means it is one of the best resources on the list. You can contact the artists and ask what their work can be used for.

Playlists

Here is this week’s playlist, and one of the coolest things about Apple Music playlists is the commentary under the title :