The Free Music Archive: Songs Get Unbound

We’ve recently been spending some time exploring the Free Music Archive, an interactive library of music downloads created in an effort to continue in the tradition of radio by offering the public access to a steady stream of new music. The project is a collaboration being directed by indie stalwart WFMU in partnership with KEXP, dublab, KBOO, ISSUE Project Room, and CASH Music among others. The website brings a curatorial vision alongside a new business model that hopes to benefit the musicians involved, extending both their reach and revenues. From dedicated artist pages, visitors are given the option to purchase albums from an artist’s preferred vendor, as well as “tip” the artists directly through PayPal. The scope of the project is already impressive with its intuitive site design and eclectic mix of artists, genres and live tracks and we suspect it will only get better with time. 

The about section explains how the archive works:

Every mp3 you discover on The Free Music Archive is pre-cleared for certain types of uses that would otherwise be prohibited by outdated copyright law.  Are you a podcaster looking for pod-safe audio? A radio or video producer searching for instrumental bed music that won’t put your audience to sleep?  A remix artist looking for pre-cleared samples? Or are you simply looking for some new sounds to add to your next playlist?  The Free Music Archive is a resource for all that and more, and unlike other websites, all of the audio has been hand-picked by established audio curators.

Free Music Archive