In just a few years, streaming platforms like Spotify, Deezer, and Apple Music have become essential for accessing large music catalogs. Unfortunately, listening to music offline via these services requires a paid subscription.
Do you have to pay to listen to music offline? No. There are many online services on the web that allow you to listen to music via streaming and also offer free downloads of certain tracks. Mostly offered as MP3 files, these music files can be stored on any device for offline listening. This practice was still very common a few years ago, before declining considerably with the explosion of streaming.
That said, you will find platforms on the Web hosting content from more or less well-known artists, sometimes unreleased tracks and mixes, and even in some cases, exclusive live recordings of concerts, unavailable elsewhere. While most of these online services offer the purchase of tracks, they also allow artists to publish some of their tracks for free download. We have selected ten online services for you to download music for free and completely legally.
1. Internet Archive
You probably haven't thought about it, but Archive.org, the largest archive on the web, not only saves every page on the global web, but also keeps a copy of a large number of audio files. Among these, you will find a very large number of music from artists of all backgrounds, concert recordings, but also audio collections of contemporary music, Hip-hop mixtapes, and much more. The Live tracks, recorded on the dedicated page Live Music Archive, are part of a community effort aimed at "preserving and archiving as many live concerts as possible, for the enjoyment of current and future generations."
A plus point is that the tracks offered on Archive.org can be listened to directly from your web browser, before being downloaded locally to your device (from the right column) in the proposed formats (MP3, FLAC, etc.). Faced with the enormous quantity of tracks available, the best thing to do is probably to go and search the page Archive Audio using the appropriate filters.
2. Jamendo
The first online service to offer royalty-free music in 2004, Jamendo now presents itself as a platform allowing musicians and music enthusiasts to come together in the same community.
The service, which gives pride of place to independent music, boasts a catalog of more than 600,000 tracks, and more than 40,000 international artists. All musical styles are represented and can be downloaded free of charge for personal use.
To compensate artists, Jamendo offers professionals looking for music for their films, advertisements, and other audiovisual productions the option of paying a commercial use license.
3. SoundCloud
Following in the footsteps of MySpace, SoundCloud is an audio distribution service that allows artists to publish and distribute their creations to a very wide audience. A true musical social network, SoundCloud claims to be the world's largest music platform.
It allows you to stream tracks from artists of all backgrounds, from independent musicians to renowned singers who use it primarily to share their creations internationally and monetize their work.
When artists have enabled this feature, the service can be used to download music for free. A "Free Download" button is then displayed.
SoundCloud also offers a fairly easy way to search for free downloadable content from its search engine, in which you simply enter the "free download" tag.
The service doesn't just host content, as it also allows artists to direct users to other platforms to download content or watch related clips.
4.ReverbNation
Similar to SoundCloud, ReverbNation offers artists a platform to distribute their creations, but also to monetize their content by offering to purchase some of their tracks directly from the site.
ReverbNation thus offers to listen to the music of thousands of artists in streaming for free, with, for some, several tracks downloadable for free.
To easily find these free tracks, ReverbNation has integrated into its search engine a checkbox "Free MP3s Required" allowing you to filter your searches to only display artists offering some of their tracks for free download.
5. SoundClick
SoundClick claims to be one of the pioneers of online music. The platform, founded in 1997, defines itself as a social network. It offers millions of tracks, mostly produced by independent artists, for listening and downloading.
The site allows fans to stream artists, interact with them, and, most importantly, download some of their tracks for free. Based on the track count, across all musical styles, SoundClick offers nearly six million tracks.
6. Pixabay
If you're familiar with Pixabay, it's probably because you occasionally download royalty-free images from it. But the platform isn't limited to that. It offers a vast catalog of music, which can be downloaded for free and used freely.
The tracks offered (more than 120,000 titles claimed by Pixabay) cover all musical styles and can be streamed from the platform. But you can also download them to store and listen to them locally on one of your devices before being downloaded. Note that you will not need to register or log in, nor provide any email address to download tracks to your computer.
7. Bandcamp
Bandcamp presents itself as an online record store with the ability to connect artists with their fans. The platform, whose interface has been greatly improved over time (especially the player for online listening), covers all musical styles and allows, first and foremost, to buy songs or albums directly from their artists. But among these tracks, a certain number of them can be downloaded for free.
To find them, you'll need to use the service's search engine to search for the tags gratuit, free download, or free. The tracks you can get should ideally be purchased. But the artists behind them have set a free price to allow users to download them for free if they can't financially support the artist. The tracks, which can be streamed from your web browser, can be downloaded in various formats (MP3, FLAC, AIFF, OGG, etc.)
8. Free Music Archive
Free Music Archive is undoubtedly one of the most well-known free music download platforms for content creators. And for good reason, the titles hosted there are royalty-free and offered for the most part under Creative Commons license, thus allowing everyone to download and use music for free to illustrate projects.
Free Music Archive supports more than 50,000 creatives, mostly independent artists and music producers from around the world. The platform hosts some 150,000 original songs
9. Musopen
Classical music fans will undoubtedly find what they are looking for on Musopen. The platform, which allows you to download sheet music and listen to classical music via a web radio, also offers a large catalog of classical music that can be downloaded for free. From Johann Sebastian Bach to Mozart, including Beethoven and Chopin, you will find hundreds of music tracks on this service that you can download freely to your computer.
Be careful, however, while it is possible to stream all the songs on the site, you will have to create an account and log in to download content. Furthermore, the quality of the songs retrieved is not always up to what you can find on other services of the same type.
10. Last.fm
Better known for its web radios or its ability to generate statistics, Last.fm also allows you to download music for free and completely legally. To enjoy it, simply go to the dedicated page where you will find several dozen tracks that can be downloaded freely and without registration. The tracks offered, in mp3 format, come from artists as diverse as they are varied and cover all musical styles.
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