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Laura Cantrell.....Carbon/Silicon.....Neko Case.....Cocteau Twins.....Devin Davis.....Death Cab For Cutie.....the Decemberists.....Tanya Donelly.....
the Dresden Dolls.....Kathleen Edwards.....For Stars.....Annie Gallup.....Barry Thomas Goldberg.....Goldrush.....Guided By Voices.....Annie Hayden.....
Boo Hewerdine.....Kristin Hersh.....
Innocence Mission.....Iron & Wine.....Lovers.....Marah.....Matt Pond PA.....Maybe Baby.....Emma McGlynn.....
Midlake.....Anais Mitchell.....Juana Molina.....Jennifer O'Connor.....the Octopus Project.....Okkervil River.....Over the Rhine.....Sam Phillips.....
Pinback.....Rose Polenzani.....R.E.M......Eddi Reader.....Rilo Kiley.....Kate Rusby.....Seachange.....the Sheds.....the Shins.....Sigur Rós.....
Jill Sobule.....the Spectacular Fantastic.....Spoon.....Sufjan Stevens.....Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros.....John Vanderslice.....Laura Veirs.....
Gina Villalobos.....Martha Wainwright.....Tom Waits.....Paul Westerberg.....Wilco.....the Wrens.....Steve Wynn.....Yo La Tengo......
the Young Republic.....Warren Zevon.....
last updated 11 May 08
A
The Arcade Fire
While Merge Records doesn't go out of its way to make these easy to find, there are in fact three Arcade Fire songs available as free and legal MP3s on the Merge site, all from the band's brilliant debut CD, Funeral. Here are the direct links: "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)," "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)," and "Wake Up." If you have still somehow not managed to check this band out--perhaps you have a highly developed (and usually warranted) suspicion of internet hype--please do yourself a favor and give a listen. This CD is the real thing, this band has incredible potential, and these songs are a very worthy addition to your iPod. Additionally, there is one MP3 available from their second CD, Neon Bible, "Black Mirror"--another good one.
The Arrogants
The Arrogants are a five-piece band from Orange County, California with a fresh take on a classic sound (think Blondie meets the Sundays) and lots of MP3s to grab your ears. While it's hard not to be entranced by vocalist Jana Heller's pop-perfect voice, what makes me stick around is the sturdiness of the playing and songwriting supporting her. If this type of glistening, hard-rocking pop music were as effortless to make as it sounds, there would be a lot more of it around. Fortunately, the band is way generous with its free and legal offerings: the MP3 page has 25 songs available in all--nine from the band's just-released full-length (23 tracks!) CD, You've Always Known When Best to Say Goodbye..., and all 17 songs from their first two EPs. You will also find the six songs from their full-length at Letterbox Records, the band's British label.
Asobi Seksu
If only for the 2004 noise-pop gem "I'm Happy But You Don't Like Me," this NYC quartet is worth knowing about; happily, all six MP3s available on the band's site are quite good--two from their second CD, Citrus, and four from their self-titled debut. I'll admit I fall hard for Asobi Seksu's basic approach, which they sum up quite aptly on their first CD: "The band melds lush yet wonderfully crushing waves of white noise in variation with synth-driven pop melodies and tight lounge progressions." What's not to love? A bonus on the site is an MP3 of the band covering Ramones' holiday nugget "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)." Also, a non-CD track called "Stay Awake" has found its way online, available as a free and legal MP3 via the Adult Swim web site, of all places.
Nicole Atkins updated
The New Jersey-based Atkins has a big voice, a healthy respect for music history, and a heady command of the craft of songwriting. I'm pretty sure she's going places beyond the "This Week's Finds" page (where she has, so far, been featured here and here). Between her first and second TWF appearance she was signed to a major label (Sony's Red Ink imprint); even so, I'm happy to report that her music still sounds great, and (even more unusually) free and legal MP3s remain online so you can hear for yourself. The only problem is the four MP3s she has available are not all in one place. Check out "Skywriters" and "Carouselle" by following the green links to the TWF blurbs, earlier in this paragraph; "Party's Over" is available via Sony, here, and "Bleeding Diamonds" via the 2007 SXSW site, here (thanks to Frank at Chromewaves for gathering these together and reminding me I wanted to do this entry). Most recently, "Maybe Tonight" is available via the 2008 SXSW repository.
B
Eszter Balint
A Hungarian-born actress/violinist/singer/songwriter, Balint has truly romantic alternative credentials--she grew up acting in her parents' avant garde theater troupe in Europe, relocated to New York in time to hang out with those "No Wave" characters in the late '70s and early '80s, and made a memorable screen debut in Jim Jarmisch's Stranger Than Paradise in 1984. This all by the age of 15. In the '90s she turned increasingly to music. Her debut CD, Flicker, came out in 1999; a long-awaited follow-up, Mud, was released in 2004. There's something of Patti Smith channeled through Lucinda Williams at work here, but with the languid, de-constructed air of latter-day Tom Waits thrown into the mix. Six MP3s are available here--two from Mud, three from her previous one, and a final song labeled "A Very Old Demo." Note that the web site does not appear to be active these days; the last signs of life were around the time of Mud.
Björk
The magically unusual Icelandic singer/songwriter has a web site positively overflowing with stuff of one sort or another. I'd visited any number of times over the years before finally noticing (thanks to Fat Planet) that there were a few free and legal MP3s available there. They're buried in a section called Vespertine Special; when you get there, scroll down to a section that says "hafandi eyrað í vasanum" (which, apparently, means "having the ear in the pocket"). There you'll see four songs available for downloading, the most substantial, to my ears, being "Verandi." If you're at all video-oriented, you'll find a whole lot more to sink your teeth into on
Björk's site--over a dozen of her, shall we say, idiosyncratic videos are available for viewing. And then you could get lost for a very long time in the vast, cross-referenced repository of sheer information: interviews, commentaries, explanations, history, you name it. This is one of the most comprehensive (if over-busy) musician sites I've seen on the web.
Carla Bozulich
Carla Bozulich is an almost scarily unrestrained singer, her depth-laced voice alternating between a duskier version of Tanya Donelly and full-throttled Patti Smith-ish-ness. Bozulich made her biggest impact on the alternative scene as leader of the critically-acclaimed punk-country-folk (or whatever!) band, The Geraldine Fibbers; since the band's dissolution in the late '90s, Bozulich has intermittently recorded with former Fibber Nels Cline (now a member of Wilco), while involving herself with a variety of experimental art projects in Los Angeles. There are 15 MP3s available on her web site, including tracks from the Geraldine Fibbers and her pre-Fibbers band Ethyl Meatplow.
Bright Eyes
I am not sure I am climbing onto the Bright Eyes bandwagon (yet), but clearly quivery-voiced Conor Oberst is a talent to be noted, and listened to, at least to see what you think. There are 18 MP3s available on the Saddle Creek Records site (along with one free iTunes download), including two each from his two 2005 CDs (one an acoustic-based effort, the other more electronic), and two from his 2006 collection Noise Floor, which gathers singles, one-offs, unreleased tracks, and so forth; and, two from his 2007 release Cassadaga, in which he sings in a newly straightforward manner, with less that quivery angst. Click "Downloads" once you're there to access them. Note that these are all "AM radio"-like quality, which to me is slightly but not very bothersome. I'd rather have access to lower-quality full-length MP3s than higher-quality clips. That said, there are higher-quality versions of 13 of his songs available via CNET's music.download.com.
Jonatha Brooke
One of the most distinctive and talented singer/songwriters of
her generation, Jonatha Brooke has long had one of the most musically generous web sites on the internet (at least for PC users). In 2007 it's undergone a smart redesign, with a sharp new look and streamlined feeling. Although she features only one free MP3 (go here to find it), Jonatha gives us
full-length streams of nearly every song she has recorded. You can listen to entire albums straight through or individual songs in any order, one by one. Go to the Music page, click on an album, and
click on the word "Listen" under any given song.
If you want to see notes on individual songs and read the lyrics, click
on the "More." Note that the streams work only for PC users (unless there's a way to work with Real Player .ram files on a Mac that I don't know about).
C
Laura Cantrell
Cantrell is a Nashville-born, New York-based musician and radio host (her weekly "Radio Thrift Shop" program can be heard on WFMU) who recorded two highly-acclaimed CDs before quitting her day job at a Manhattan-based financial firm to do music full-time. These sturdy, tradition-minded recordings of hers have attracted a number of notable music-industry fans over the last five years, including Elvis Costello (who picked her to open for him on a number of his 2002 concerts) and the late John Peel, who in 2001 called her first CD "my favourite record of the last ten years and possibly my life." Cantrell offers a generous, annotated assortment of 19 MP3s on her clean, nicely designed web site--including a "This Week's Finds" pick, "14th Street."
Carbon/Silicon
I am thrilled to hear Mick Jones singing again after all these years. The former co-leader of the Clash has, in fact, been in Carbon/Silicon with Tony James (ex- of Generation X and Sigue Sigue Sputnik) since 2003, but their profile has been low on this side of the pond until the last couple of months. Jones and James have offered every track they've recorded as a free and legal download at one point; currently they're keeping available MP3s down to around a half dozen at any given time, which gives you motivation to check in semi-regularly. And apparently Jones and James were inspired to start a band specifically by the reality of peer-to-peer file sharing; as lyrics in the song "M. P. Free" have it: "A billion downloads can it be wrong/A billion people heard my song/So, Goodbye Mr Copyright/The fame will keep me up all night." Also this, from the web site: "The Digital Genie is SO out of the bottle now and I believe it came to save Rock and Roll not destroy it."
Neko Case
Silver-voiced, mysterious, and solid as a rock, Neko Case has a voice for the ages, and a potentially ruinous personal history that manages to reaffirm one's faith in human nature: if someone went through all that ("My parents very much wanted me to become a crack-whore, but I gravely disappointed them by graduating from college," she writes, off-handedly, on her personable web site) and turned out so together, well, there's hope for all of us, yes? Reward yourself by checking out her free and legals--there are four MP3s available via music.download.com, two from the brilliant 2006 CD Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, and two from her live 2004 CD The Tigers Have Spoken. Then reward her by buying a CD or two.
Cocteau Twins
Pioneering purveyors of a dreamy type of arty synthesizer pop sometimes known simply as "dream pop," Scotland's Cocteau Twins have a web site that lives on even as the band itself is gone. In addition to offering an exhaustive history of the band (which quietly went their separate ways in 1996), the web site features a generous storehouse of MP3s--25 in all, plus two commercial jingles. The songs are a mixture of b-sides, rarities, remixes, and live recordings, but it's really quite a marvelous assortment of freebies that is well worth poking around if you're a fan or if you have any interest in one of the U.K.'s most popular and influential bands of the '80s and '90s.
D
Devin Davis
One of the more talented of the so-called "bedroom rockers" to emerge early in the 21st century, Chicago's Devin Davis opens his mouth and Ray Davies all but tumbles out. This is a fine thing in and of itself, as I am kindly disposed to anyone properly inspired by the Kinks. But Davis has much more going for him than a Kinks fixation, a fact made clearest by his achievement as a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/arranger/engineer/producer. What distinguishes Davis are the strength of his songs and the looseness he somehow manages to inject into his sound. Three MP3s from his fine debut, Lonely People of the World, Unite!, are available on his web site (along with three MP3s of live performances dating from NYC in November 2004). Another MP3 from the album is hosted over on SXSW.
Death Cab for Cutie
"Death Cab for Cutie" was a song on the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's debut album (circa 1967); as a band name it implies a harsh, nihilistic sound that is rather the opposite of the sound the band has. Maybe that's part of the joke. In any case, as it turns out, front man Ben Gibbard has an aching, delightful pop voice,
recalling the likes of Erasure's Vince Clarke, and now spawning a whole new series of sound-alike bands, with similarly precise, carefully articulated sorts of songs sung by a sweet-voiced front man. There are seven Death Cab
for Cutie MP3s posted on the Barsuk Records web site, including a song from the band's 2005 album Plans, which was actually released on Atlantic Records (but Barsuk released a vinyl version of it). There are another six MP3s available at Epitonic, plus one repeat from Barsuk's selection. The band had something of an indie/cultural moment in 2004 thanks in large part to their emergence as the definitive O.C. band of the day; seems like ancient history already in this sped-up decade of ours. While never as brilliant, to my ears, as the hype implied, they're definitely worth a listen.
The Decemberists
A Fingertips favorite from the starting gate back in '03, the Decemberists play a poignant, idiosyncratic style of rock'n'roll--acoustic-based, with a knowing sense of instrumentation, an unerring ear for melody, and a predilection for 19th-century words and settings. More power to them that they've gained a wider audience over these last few years--their most recent CD, The Crane Wife (2006), was released on Capitol Records. Between their current major-label status and the fact that their previous record label, Kill Rock Stars, has redesigned its web site and greatly reduced their available MP3s, there are not nearly the number of Decemberists songs available as free and legal MP3s as there were a couple of years ago. You will however still find three MP3s from older records on music.download.com. Additionally, one MP3 ("Summersong") from the The Crane Wife, is available via Pitchfork, so hope is not lost.
Tanya Donelly
The continually alluring and puzzling vocalist who once led the group Belly has placed a trove of demo recordings up on her web site, including 10 from Belly's Star CD and 14 from her solo CD Beautysleep and Lovesongs; and there are an additional four live songs from this album as well. Plus, there's one bonus track here: Donelly's spacious, emotive take on "Edelweiss," the Sound of Music nugget. What's more, Donelly has posted 10 MP3s that were recorded at the same time as her recent This Hungry Life CD, an album that was recorded live in front of an audience in a Vermont club.
The Dresden Dolls
The White Stripes have their guitar-and-drum, Led Zeppelin meets a couple of geeks from Detroit act; meanwhile over in Boston we have the Dresden Dolls with their piano-and-drum, Kurt Weill meets a couple of punks act. It's hard to know what kind of shelf life this sort of duo will have, but the music ("Brechtian Punk Cabaret," as they label it themselves) certainly stands out in a crowd. And there are hints at a simmering sort of brilliance beneath what might at first glance seem like shtick: the music exudes a sneaky sort of chaotic sophistication, and Amanda Palmer's succulently husky voice rivets the ear. There are five MP3s available on the band's site--four from their self-titled debut CD, which was released in April 2004, and one from their long-awaited follow-up, Yes, Virginia, which came out in April 2006. The band also intermittently posts live tracks to download; they're up to 13 in all, available on the same page. Occasionally they do covers, which are particularly interesting; they include Harry Nilsson's "One," Leonard Cohen's "Dance With Me Until the End of Time."
E
Kathleen Edwards
This wonderful and gifted Canadian singer/songwriter has 10 MP3s available on her site, five from each of her two CDs. Go to the home page, click "Music" (left-hand column), and enjoy--this is exceptional stuff. Start with "Six O'Clock News" and "In State" to get a sense of her electric, Neil Youngian side, but don't miss "Lone Wolf" to hear her quieter side, and "Westby" to catch her somewhat naughty sense of humor.
F
For
Stars
Nick Drake meets Radiohead (or, at
least, Coldplay): this S.F.-based quintet has an appealing melancholy and intensity about them. I think their 2004 CD--It Falls Apart was prophetically named, as the band's web site is no longer online and the band itself nowhere to be found. They're still worth checking out, however, which you can do via Epitonic, which still hosts seven MP3s of theirs, including the lovely "Field of Fire," a former Fingertips Top 10 selection. Another former Top 10 selection, "It Doesn't Really Matter," can be found at Insound, along with two more MP3s, here.
G
Annie Gallup
Here we have a great example of what
you can find on the web that you can't find on the radio and it's so
good. Annie Gallup is a beat-inflected singer/songwriter/poet who has managed
not to get the attention she richly deserves. Her web site is focused on her lyrics (which themselves are quite worthwhile), but one MP3 is available via the record label Fifty Fifty Music, and it's a keeper:
"Money,"
the incredible lead track from her 2001 CD, Swerve. Gallup flies so far under the radar screen that it's hard to discover when her releases hit the street, even after the fact. Most recent was a collaborative EP in (I think) late 2006 called Ortho Songs, which sounds like a good accompaniment to Michael Moore's movie about the health care system. All five songs are available as MP3s on her site, but note that she only sings on two of them.
Barry Thomas Goldberg
The gruff but lovable Goldberg cuts an unusual 21st-century figure: an old-school Midwestern rock'n'roller who has managed to maintain a youthful sort of defiance and edginess; from the depths of his vivid, cigarette-stained voice comes a sound you just don't hear from 20-something indie rockers. Scroll through the site's willfully unpolished layout (don't forget to go to page two and three as well) and you'll eventually come across a dozen or so full-length MP3s. Honestly, it's hard to tell, they're spread out willy-nilly down the page, in and around lots of text and graphics. Included among them are two former TWF picks, "American Grotesque" and "Remember New Orleans". The latest upload, "Break Away," from his 2007 CD Mapleton Memoir, sounds like another worthy song. Thanks to visitor Paul for cluing me in to Goldberg in the first place, and keeping me posted on his comings and goings.
Goldrush
Five lads from Oxford, England who do not sound like Radiohead, Goldrush has been busy the last few years perfecting a British take on Americana music, with nods towards everyone from the Byrds to Neil Young to Wilco. In the process (as these things go with the right amount of talent), the band has developed a sound that seems pretty much their own (not to mention a record company in the U.K. that is their own). There are five MP3s available on the Better Looking Records web site--three from the band's debut U.S. CD, Ozona, and two from their follow-up CD, 2007's The Heart is the Place. An additional MP3 from Ozona is available on the band's
Truck Records site, while another MP3 from The Heart is the Place can be found among the MP3s available for the 2007 SXSW festival.
Guided By Voices
Dayton, Ohio's claim to indie rock fame, Guided
by Voices, masterminded by the prolific Robert Pollard, chugged along for more than 15 years before calling it quits at the end of 2004. During their years as a band they released something like 179 albums. (Well, okay, not quite that many, but they sure have been prolific, to the
point of being hard to keep up with if not a devoted fan.) While Matador Records has inexplicably pulled their fine selection of GBV MP3s off the site (along with most every other MP3 they had available; boo!), you can still find a dozen or so MP3s (some non-album material) on the
band's
web site (click on the words "GBV MultiMedia," then on "MP3" under the "Sounds" heading). The MP3s here are listed as "clips" but are actually songs; be aware that mixed in and around studio recordings are some 30 MP3s of live performances, which make up for in charm (sometimes) what they lack in sound quality. And then, too, Pollard has a whole batch of MP3s from his solo recordings, themselves mushrooming rapidly, on his own web site, here. There are a lot of demos but also a good number of album tracks, including one TWF pick, "Death of the Party," from his "Keene Brothers" project.
H
Annie Hayden
Gifted with one of
those refreshingly pure, heart-opening voices (like, maybe, Angie Hart from
Frente, or Mary Lou Lord), Annie Hayden spent the mid'-90s in the Jersey-based indie-pop band Spent, attracting a small but loyal following in the process. She then became a solo performer, released one CD (Rub, on Merge Records, in 2000), and kind of sort of disappeared. At long last a second CD, The Enemy of Love, was released on Merge in September 2005. One MP3 from the newer CD is available here; two MP3s from her first CD are available via Epitonic.
Kristin Hersh
"Money has so polluted the music world that my overwhelming urge right now is to divorce money from recorded music," writes Kristin Hersh on her web site, dated 15 December 2005. And so saying, she and her current band 50 Foot Wave released a new EP entitled Free Music that is exactly that: music available for free, legally, online. You'll find the five-song EP in its entirely here, along with three of Hersh's solo songs (from her Grotto CD), three songs from Throwing Muses' self-titled "comeback" CD from 2003, and one song identified merely as being from something called "kdd." Regardless of what you think of her music--I'll admit I find some of it too churny-muscley for my taste--Hersh is without question a musician of talent and principle. "We thought it'd be interesting to ask for your energy and enthusiasm rather than your money and see what happens," she writes, of the experiment in free music. Show her some love and give a listen.
Boo Hewerdine
A songwriter,
guitarist, and producer who's worked behind the scenes more often than as a
performer, Hewerdine is an accomplished musician with the occasional knack for
creating truly memorable moments both as a writer and performer. His output is
uneven, but he's worth knowing about. Note: even though the
web site looks very low-tech, Hewerdine offers a lot--roughly 20 MP3s to download,
from both his solo albums as well as his work with the British group The Bible,
and albums he did as collaborations with others. The MP3s are grouped by project; you'll have to click album by album to see what's there.
I
Innocence Mission
The Lancaster, PA-based folk-pop band has four MP3s up on their record company's web site, and two MP3s available via Insound (there are actually three there, but one's a repeat from the label site). Nice, dreamy stuff, reminiscent of the Sundays. "Tomorrow on the Runway" (it's on the Fingertips "All-Time" Top 10) is one of my favorite songs ever; I suggest also, at least, listening to the band's charming version of "What a Wonderful World." The band used to host full-length MP3s on its site but no longer does--the "audio" page there now links you to clip-length MP3s.
Iron & Wine NEW
South Carolina-raised Sam Beam is more than a whisper and a beard; over time, he's developed into quite a remarkable singer/songwriter, performing as Iron & Wine. And over time, his record label, Sub Pop, has developed a nice little collection of free and legal Iron & Wine MP3s--seven in all, including two highly-placed tunes on the Fingertips Top 10: "Woman King" and "Boy With a Coin." Go here, and scroll to where it says "Downloads." Based for a long time in Florida, Beam is now based in Austin.
JK
L
Lovers
Haunted-sounding music from the haunted-sounding singer/songwriter Carolyn Berk. She puts out albums with the band name Lovers, but there doesn't seem to be an actual band here, just beautifully assembled ensembles featuring cello, banjo, and other assorted stringed instruments. What also sets Berk apart from the singer/songwriter pack is her keen knack for melody and song, as readily apparent in all three MP3s available on the web site. Be sure to check out "The Garden" first and foremost--a beautiful, searing piece of work. Lovers has released just two CDs to date, the last in 2004, but the good news is a new album is scheduled now for an October '07 release.
M
Marah
There are more MP3s available from this
well-regarded, Philadelphia-born, Bruce Springsteen-influenced band on their web site than might first appear to be there. Eight of the CD titles listed on the band's discography page are clickable, and will each take you to a page with one MP3 available from that album. The band has relatively recently redesigned its web site; a page from the old site, however, is still available if you know where to go (um: here), which features four additional MP3s.
Matt
Pond PA
An attractive indie outfit with a great knack for melody and song structure,
Matt Pond PA offers six MP3s on
their web site (click on the logo to enter, then on the word "mp3"), including "Grave's Disease," a former "This Week's Finds" selection. There are five MP3s at Insound, two of which are not repeats from the band site (including another former TWF pick, "Fairlee"). Then there are
three MP3s to be found on the web site of their former record label, Polyvinyl Records, but they're all repeats from elsewhere (from the main page, click "Audio/Video" and scroll down).
Maybe
Baby
Jennifer Kimball and Jonatha Brooke, together known as The Story, parted ways in
1994. Brooke continued onward with Story-like music (she had in fact written and
sang most of the Story's last album), but Kimball more or less disappeared after
that. There was a solo CD in 1998 on a small label but otherwise she spent the
better part of the '90s singing on other people's records. Kimball resurfaced in 2003 with a band, the Boston-based Maybe Baby. She sings both lead and back-up vocals, a
combination that seems to suit her. Check out four MP3s on the group's web site. The band is not very active; neither is the web site. But the songs are worth checking out, particularly "All The Time in the World." Kimball's web site is the more active place these days to check in on her. She released a solo CD in early 2006, but no free and legal MP3s have emerged from that one at this point.
Emma McGlynn
Like Ani DiFranco, this U.K.-based singer/songwriter releases her own music on her own label, sings in a freewheeling and emotive style, and shows a lot of technical flair on her acoustic guitar. Similarities aside, McGlynn comes off as very much her own person; she's got a spiritually softer vibe, somehow, than DiFranco--something less prickly and self-absorbed comes through. Plus she appears to be moving in a more electric direction, playing lately with a band called the Monorails. There are currently three full-length MP3s available on her web site (plus four live-on-the-radio recordings), including two former "This Week's Finds" picks, "Impatience" and "Whole Heap." Scroll down a little on the page to find them.
Midlake
A quintet of former North Texas School of Music students have banded together to create a wonderfully assured sound that has changed notably from CD to CD. The band's web site no longer features the downloads they used to offer, unfortunately. But you can still grab the brilliant, Procol Harum-ish "Balloon Maker" off the SXSW web site here. That one's from their charming 2004 CD, Bamnan and Slivercork. The band's second CD, The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006), releases prog-rock influences to mine a flowing, Fleetwood Macky sound. This album has yielded one straightforward free and legal MP3--the wonderful "Roscoe" (a TWF pick) and then two remixes of the song "Young Bride"; you can find them all here.
Anais Mitchell
With a fiery, colorful voice that's one part Iris DeMent, one part Shawn Colvin, one part intelligent young American contemporary folk singer trying to figure life out, Anais Mitchell offers two MP3s on her web site, both from her 2004 CD, Hymns for the Exiled. There is also an MP3 from her 2007 release, The Brightness, available via Toolshed, a music promotion company with a knack for offering worthy free and legal MP3s from their clients; the song is called "Fonder Heart" and here is a direct link. I am not inherently drawn to earnest, folk-imbued singer/songwriters, but I think Mitchell shows a lot of what Charles Ives liked to call "substance" within the mere "manner" of her chosen genre. She is often political but smart enough not to write simplistically or didactically. Thanks to visitor Eric for introducing me to her.
Juana Molina
A beguiling singer/songwriter from Argentina, Molina is probably not for everyone--her
voice is a bit breathy, and her songs develop slowly, favoring entrancing
repetition over a traditional sense of verse and chorus; there's something of
Astrud Gilberto meets trip-hop about her. Me, I find it fun, rewarding, and
different. She's got eight songs available as free and legal downloads on her site, but you have to download them as .zip files, then extract them. Start here and click the word "downloads"; I suggest trying the song "Micael" from her 2006 CD Son and the title track to her CD Tres Cosas and advancing from there. If you're into her sound, I strongly suggest watching this cool video about her that's up on YouTube also.
N
O
Jennifer O'Connor
Many people, I think, believe that with singer/songwriters, it begins with the song. Me, I think there's a reason we don't call them songwriter/singers; I think it begins with the voice. When the voice does the right thing--whatever the hell that actually is, and it's never properly describeable--not only do you know it, but you feel it. And once you feel it, you go wherever the songs go. Jennifer O'Connor has one of those voices. Low-pitched and speaking-voice-like, it's not necessarily pretty (though it sort of is), it's not necessarily all that versatile, but it's a voice I feel, and I follow it. Since signing to Matador Records (yay for her!), she's taken down the MP3s that used to live on her web site (alas for us!). There remain two MP3s from her most recent CD, Over the Mountains, Across the Valley, and Back to the Stars, on the Matador Records site. Note that you can stream the entire CD on her site; click on "Music" then look for the boombox in the corner.
The Octopus Project
So I will admit I'm not normally a fan of rock instrumentals, nor, therefore, of bands that only do instrumentals. But there is something so instantly appealing about the Octopus Project's approach to rock-without-singing, which blends together all sorts of electronic-seeming noises with the squonk and squawk of real electric instruments into songs that ooze warmth, invention, and charm. The record label calls it "ambidextrous equipment failure junk-tronica," which is as good a description as any. Listen for yourself: the band has 13 MP3s available on its web site, including three from its most recent release, The House of Apples and Eyeballs (2006), a colloboration with Black Moth Super Rainbow. There is also one MP3 available on the band's page within the 2006 SXSW web site. Most recently, four songs from the band's latest CD, Hello, Avalanche, have become available: "I Saw the Bright Shinies" (here); "Bees Bein' Strugglin'" (here); "An Evening With Rthrtha" (here); and "Truck" (here).
Okkervil River
This Austin-based quintet is sounding more and more like a band poised for a wide audience. There are six MP3s available at the Jagjaguwar Records site, including three former TWF picks: "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe,"
"For Real," and "It Ends With a Fall". On Insound, you'll find two more MP3s (plus three already on the Jagjaguwar site). Additionally, two older MP3s are available via Epitonic. In addition to the TWF picks on the Jagjaguwar site, don't miss "The President's Dead," a strange and compelling dream of an alternate-reality song, and the brisk and excellent "No Key, No Plan." Good stuff.
Over the Rhine
This stylish Cincinnati-based band has
always had a spiffy web presence. A 2007 redesign is a good news/bad news deal: the good news is the site is more handsome than ever; the bad news is the free and legal MP3s have disappeared, replaced by an MP3 store selling songs at 99 cents a pop. Still worth it, but as I'm supposed to be guiding you to great free and legal MP3s, I'll instead focus on the fact that there are still some free OTR songs left online here and there. You'll find five on the web site of their publicity company: three from their latest CD, The Trumpet Child (including a TWF pick, "Trouble"), and two from their classy Christmas offering, entitled Snow Angels (including another TWF pick, "All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue"). Beyond that, a direct link to a song from their wonderful 2006 CD Drunkard's Prayer can be found at the SXSW site, 2006 festival edition, here.
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Sam Phillips
The incomparable Sam Phillips is one of my all-time favorite artists and now, wow, I just stumbled upon her web site, redesigned earlier in 2006, upon which are stored four MP3s. They are songs from, only, her two most recent CDs, recorded for Nonesuch Records, but they are truly wonderful (albeit very quiet) albums. Three of the MP3s come off A Boot and a Shoe (2004), including the stunning "Reflecting Light," while one is from Fan Dance (2001). The web site also offers an as-yet limited blog, with just a couple of entries, but do read the entry from June 23, 2006 if you get a chance. "God knows there is always trouble," she writes, "but ecstasy is on the prowl. I think it's trying to find us."
Pinback
As often as I've listened to Pinback's free and legal MP3s, I still have a hard time putting my arms around their music, either in terms of describing it or even recalling in my head what they sound like. No matter: whatever this two-man band (bolstered, Steely Dan-ishly, by a rotating cast of instrumentalists album to album) creates seems always to be well-crafted, melodic, and a little bit surprising. Symbolically enough, even their MP3s are hard to pin down, scattered as they are on a variety of sites: there are two on the band's site, one on Insound (this is a direct link to the song "Fortress," featured on "This Week's Finds" in November 2004). An older MP3 (also a direct link) is available on the Absolutely Kosher Records site, while a new MP3 from their 2007 CD Autumn of the Seraphs is available via Spinner.
Rose Polenzani
Rose Polenzani is a singer/songwriter with an on-the-edge sort of bravura that brings to mind Brenda Kahn, for those who might
remember her. She has 11 MP3s from her various CDs available on her web
site, including two from the live album she recorded as part of an ad hoc group called "Voices on the Verge" (with Erin McKeown, Jess Klein, and Beth Amsel). On another page are exclusive MP3s she posts intermittently that are available only online, complete with notes from Rose herself. Some are demos, some are covers, some are new songs not yet put on CDs, some are live--17 of them in all, and counting. One more MP3 is available via SXSW.com, 2005 edition.
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R.E.M.
However well-known they have become over the years, R.E.M. does of course have its roots in the alternative
world--heck, this is the band that was partially responsible for the very existence of
something called "alternative rock." So leave it to these guys to be one of the few
major-label acts to offer some "free and legals"
even as they may not be able, because of contractual limitations, to put any of their existing album cuts online.
What they have offered are remixes, done by a series of remix specialists--there are 10 in all, based on six original R.E.M. songs. Go here, then click on "more" under "R.E.M.I.X." (R.E.M. fans might also like to check out the "Automatic for the People" tribute CD that is available as a track by track free and legal download via Stereogum; among the bands covering the songs are the Veils, the Wrens, and Rogue Wave.)
Eddi Reader
The magical, criminally under-exposed Scottish singer/songwriter Eddi Reader has
three songs stored on PasteMusic.com's hidden trove
of free and legal MP3s. While this is hardly a comprehensive or even
particularly representative sampling, three free and legal Eddi Reader songs are far better than none. Two of the songs here are
from her stripped-down 1998 CD, Simple Soul, the other from her 1992 release Mirmama,
which was re-released in 1997. Look for Eddi in the "Americana/Traditional" section. (You'll have to provide an email address to see the MP3 archive.)
Rilo Kiley
A charming, somewhat eccentric, yet thoroughly accessible band from Los Angeles, Rilo Kiley has four MP3s online in three different places. One song from their first CD, 2001's Take Offs and Landings, is available on the Barsuk Records site, while two songs from their second album, The Execution of All Things, can be found on the Saddle Creek Records site (click on "downloads" to get to the songs). Additionally, the great song "It's a Hit" from their most recent CD, More Adventurous, is available here via Insound. There do not seem to be any free and legal MP3s available from the band's major label debut, Under the Black Light, which was released on Warner Brothers in the summer of 2007.
Kate Rusby
I don't think of myself as much of a fan of pure folk music, and given that Rusby's as pure as they come--she opens her mouth and it's "Greensleeves" and knight-errant time--I'm not quite sure
why I like her. Something in her lilting British-ness, perhaps, but she charms me, and
she's got eight MP3s up on PasteMusic.com so you can see if she charms you as well. Look in the "Americana/Traditional" section; and as always with Paste, you'll need to enter an email address to access the MP3 archive.
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Seachange
A compelling sextet from Nottingham, England, Seachange adds a violin to a two-guitar rock band, and many wonderful sounds emerge. Sometimes driving, sometimes dreamy, this is one versatile and interesting band. Two excellent MP3s are available on the Matador Records site, along with two additional songs on the band's site.
One is from the 2006 CD On Fire, With Love; the other is a former TWF pick, "Walking in the Air." It used to be available straight off the home page; it's still online but only as a direct link at this point.
The Sheds
The number of DIY-ish duos making music in the U.S. has mushroomed with the rise of the internet; but an earnest desire to record and distribute your own music does not, alas, automatically make for a worthwhile listening experience. (Trust me on this one.) The Sheds, however, rise above run-of-the-mill, small-city indie rock duo music from the sheer force of their earnest yet also deeply imaginative songwriting. Hailing from Burlington, Kentucky, a quiet town on the periphery of the Cincinnati metropolitan area, the Sheds also believe in the power of free and legal music: every song on each album of theirs is available as a free and legal MP3 on their web site--more than 50 now, and counting, with the release of their 2007 CD, You've Got a Light. Go here, then click on an album title to find each page of downloadable songs. I suggest starting with their newest material and working backwards.
The Shins
It's due only to the most flagrant and goofiest of oversights that this well-known, widely admired Albuquerque quartet has been absent from the Select Artist Guide all these years. What was I thinking? They've even already been featured on "This Week's Finds" three times. Well, better late than never, and if you've committed the flagrant and goofy oversight of not yet having heard any Shins songs, the good news is you can find five MP3s of theirs on the large and resource-filled Sub Pop Records web site.
Sigur Rós
This spacy, intense Icelandic band gives you a good opportunity to
check out their haunting (but daunting) music with 11 full-length MP3s available
to download on their web site. And when I say full-length, I mean full-length--it's not
unusual for a Sigur Rós song to run 8 minutes or more. There are many live recordings available as full MP3s here as well.
Jill Sobule
Sharp-witted singer/songwriter Sobule has 10 MP3s up on her web site, presented on two different
pages. On a page called "Jill's Show & Tell," you'll find a semi-regularly rotating selection of three or four MP3s, billed as an assortment of "unreleased material, live recordings, thematically-related material, and so on." Kudos to Sobule for actually keeping this page updated, which means it's very much worth checking in on every couple of months. On a page identified simply as "Music" at the top, there are five more MP3s--four from previous releases and
one, "Jet Pack," that is not on any of her albums.
The Spectacular Fantastic updated
An effortlessly likable neo-power pop band from Cincinnati, the Spectacular Fantastic is the brainchild of singer/songwriter Mike Detmer and includes the talents of Jonathan Williams, who records on his own as Tessitura. Here is one talented band that believes in the power of free and legal music; in fact, their free and legal MP3s are getting hard to keep track of. Working from the present to the past, I'll start with the fact that in February 2008, the band released a double EP, with one free and legal MP3, "Tiny Little Heart," available from the first one, Consume, and the entire second EP, Reward, available freely and legally, here. In
May 2007, the band released the CD Outer Space is Nothing But a Lie as a free and legal download, all 11 songs, here. Scroll down and you'll see the band's second free-to-download EP (called, apparently, The Free 2006 EP), which was released in the summer of 2006. An earlier free-to-download six-song EP of theirs is still available yet further down on the page--this one includes the wonderful song "60 Cycles," a former TWF pick. And yet two more MP3s are available as part of a split single the Spectacular Fantastic released with Tessitura (the Tessitura songs are good too!). So that's another 16 or so MP3s. And wait, there's more: another former TWF pick, "Darkest Hour," is still available but on the discography page, along with five additional older MP3s.
Spoon
An Austin-based trio, Spoon has been honing its sparse, edgy, carefully crafted indie pop sound for a decade.
Such is the frenetic pace of musical trends that in staying together for more than a decade, the
band serves as an effective link from the post-Nirvana music scene of the early '90s to the mid-'00s post-hip-hop indie-rock scene, and they do it by pretty much sounding the same.
Eight MP3s are available via music.download.com, including two TWF picks: "Me and the Bean," from February '04, and "The Underdog," from June '07.
Sufjan Stevens
I'll admit I don't completely hear this guy. Sure, I sense a great amount of talent (and, of course, productivity!); and yet the songs, while intriguing to me, don't connect at the core. Clearly I'm in the minority, however, as Stevens has been widely acclaimed everywhere he goes. I'll keep listening. In the meantime, there are five MP3s to be found on the Asthmatic Kitty web site--scroll down the left side and look under the word "Stuff." An additional five songs can be found at music.download.com.
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros
The late, great co-founder of the Clash
had found a vital new musical identity at the dawning of the new millennium;
there was great promise of a whole new catalog of music that would emerge with
time as the veteran Strummer explored new sounds with his young bandmates.
Sadly, this is not to be, as Strummer died in December 2002; he was only 50.
You can find five excellent examples of his work with the Mescaleros on music.download.com, here.
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John Vanderslice
I hadn't heard of John Vanderslice until I began prowling the web
for free and legal MP3s; now he's a true Fingertips
hero. A committed believer in the concept of free and legal full-length samples,
Vanderslice is talented enough to make the system work--when you hear a few songs
for free, you're ready to give up the actual dollars required to buy a CD or two. His
web site is chock full of goodies--more than 40 MP3s in all, and that doesn't count a whole lot of live recordingsm and remixes available as MP3s also. The best place to start is on his MP3 Index page, which lists everything. There's
also a link on the site to a page where you can find all songs from each of three CDs by
Vanderslice's old band, MK Ultra; these are also very much worth hearing. New in the summer of 2007, via Pitchfork, is the song "White Dove," from his latest CD Emerald City, released in July.
Laura Veirs
There's something crystalline and precise about Laura Veirs' music, even as there's likewise something loose and unrestrained; she strikes me as a singular talent. Although from Colorado, Veirs first developed a more significant following overseas than in the U.S., where her first three CDs were difficult to find to say the least. Her American profile increased markedly in 2004 when Nonesuch released her CD Carbon Glacier. (The only bad thing about that is it led to the elimination of a couple of great MP3s from web, as Nonesuch, an otherwise estimable label, does not believe in full-length free and legal MP3s. And so the web has lost a truly great song, "The Cloud Room," a "This Week's Finds" selection in early April 2004 and a former number one song in the Fingertips Top 10.) On her web site you'll find MP3s from her first three CDs only, five songs in all; go here, then click on the words "listen/buy" from the choices at the top. there is also an MP3 of a French boys choir singing one of her songs. No explanation provided. Her second Nonesuch CD, Year of Meteors, came out in August 2005; you can download the fine song "Galaxies" from that CD on her 2006 SXSW page. Her most recent CD, Saltbreakers, released in April '07, has not yielded any free and legal MP3s that I've found, but you can stream a few songs from it on her MySpace page.
Gina Villalobos
Every now and then someone new comes along doing something not-very-new so sparklingly well that it seems new all over again. Operating in the well-worn roots/Americana corner of the rock'n'roll world, Gina Villalobos invites a "usual suspects" list of comparisons--in her case, Lucinda Williams and Ryan Adams seem to be the first names out of everyone's mouths--but I find her closest to the wondrous Kathleen Edwards, both in her rasp-inflected, emotive voice and in her capacity to channel some older and deeper rock'n'roll forces (think Neil Young in particular) and give them new life and force in the new century. There are supposed to be four MP3s available on her web site--two from her 2004 CD Rock'n'Roll Pony, here, and two from her 2007 CD Miles Away, here, but when I last checked the newer MP3s didn't appear to have been uploaded properly. I'm assuming that will be corrected at some point.
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Martha Wainwright
Brother of Rufus, daughter of Kate (McGarrigle) and Loudon (III), Martha Wainwright has played largely to the side and behind the scenes over the years, singing background vocals on albums by her better-known family members. But while her voice has an appealing McGarrigle-ish waver to it, Martha sings way closer to the edge than her mother and aunt do, sometimes leaving me breathless at the aural risks she takes. I've been waiting to hear more since being captivated by her haunting "Year of the Dragon" on the family-filled McGarrigle Hour CD, released back in 1998. A hard to find couple of EPs followed before Rounder Records released the more widely distributed (and provocatively titled) Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole EP in January 2005. Her first full-length CD, self-titled, followed in April, on Rounder-owned Zoe Records. Two MP3s from the BMFA EP are available on the site via the discography page--scroll down to where the EP is listed, where you'll find MP3s of the title track and the song "How Soon." The song "I Will Internalize" is supposed to available too but the link is dead. Late in 2006, a holiday MP3 emerged via Nettwerk Records: "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year," a quirky, homespun Wainwright composition that originally appeared on The McGarrigle Christmas Hour (2005).
Tom Waits
The brilliance of the mad, rogue genius Waits is impossible to sum up in a few random free and legal MP3s. But a few are better than nothing, and actually there are now seven available on the web site of his record label, Anti. None go back too far into the intimidating Waits catalog; four are from CDs released in the 1999 to 2004 time frame (including the great "Hold On"), while three have recently become available from Orphans, the 54-song, three-CD set of rarities and previously unreleased recordings that came out in the fall of 2006.
Paul Westerberg
His wild and woolly run with the Replacements decades behind him, Paul Westerberg has been recording as a solo artist for longer now than he fronted that legendary band. While he may never gain quite as much attention for his non-Mats output, he never fails to show flashes of brilliance in every CD he releases. You can check out five of his songs as free and legal MP3s on the Vagrant Records site, including the great former TWF pick, "As Far As I Know."
Wilco
The great Chicago band has done its best over the years to offer free and legal music for its fans online, ranging from entire EPs to random B-sides. While right now the band's web site does not obviously offer anything to download, what they do offer is pretty stunning: you can hear every song of theirs in its entirety, from every album they've recorded to date, from 1995's A.M. through 2007's Sky Blue Sky. The technology is simple and seamless, the sound quality high. Go to the Records page and feast your ears. Then buy something you don't own yet.
The Wrens
The Wrens' status as poster children for the phenomenon of the "critically acclaimed, commercially ignored" indie band is solidifying as work continues--slowly--on a documentary about this passionate and talented band's challenging career as a critically acclaimed, commercially ignored indie band. Little Quill Productions, which is making the documentary, has a web site featuring nine MP3s--six songs from assorted Wrens' CDs plus three live recordings. There are also nine MP3s available on the band's site, with only two repeats from the Little Quill site.
Steve Wynn updated
Wynn--a widely-respected if not exactly famous
guitarist and singer/songwriter--has an ecletic array of MP3 goodies up on his site, including songs from albums, unreleased songs, live songs, podcasts, and interviews. Go to his Sounds page and peruse away. Wynn led a group of some repute called Dream Syndicate in the
'80s, but has come increasingly into his own as a solo performer through the
'90s and into the new decade. Wynn's music is characterized by a crunchy guitar
sound that's part psychedelic, part grungy, and lyrics that manage to throw all
sorts of unexpected words and rhymes around. In the spring of '08, a new MP3 has emerged--the song "Manhattan Fault Line," available via Some Velvet Blog; it's from his latest CD, Crossing Dragon Bridge.
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Yo La Tengo
This archetypal indie trio from Hoboken continues to make compelling music with a relentlessly homespun quality. Seven MP3s are available here, including two from their memorably-titled 2006 CD I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass--one of which ("Beanbag Chair") was a TWF pick. Meanwhile, over on Last.fm, there are two MP3s from an early--but worthy--CD, 1992's May I Sing With Me.
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