The Best Sources of Free Music

With the advent of many video, audio and radio websites it is no longer necessary to buy music all the time if you are constantly searching for new artists to listen to. That's not to say that you shouldn't support your favourite musicians though. Without record sales they probably wouldn't be making the music you enjoy. However, there are times when you're strapped for cash and in such situations free music is a godsend.

Below you will find, in my opinion, some of the best websites to listen to music on.

YouTube is without a doubt one of the best websites to listen to music on. Even though the sound quality is not the best sometimes, you'd be hard pressed to find a site with a wider variety of music.

Finding your way around the website is very easy. Once you have landed on the homepage, search for the band or artist you are looking for by typing the name in the search box and pressing the enter key or clicking 'Search.' You will be taken to a search results page on which you can view many videos by clicking their links. Sometimes people upload whole albums - often with static pictures in place of a video - which can be invaluable in determining whether you would like to buy a physical copy one day.

If you want to bookmark your favourite videos for future viewing, you will need to sign up for a YouTube account. Since Google bought YouTube recently, you might be able to sign in with your Google Mail account if you have one.

Okay, admittedly not all the bands on Soundclick are ones you might have heard of, but it is well worth having a browse on there to see what unsigned talent you can find because there is lots out there, waiting to be recognised.

It's free to sign up and stream music in high quality and if you strike lucky you might find a band to your liking that offer music downloads for free.

MySpace is undoubtedly a brilliant place to go to listen to music. Many quality bands - both famous and unsigned - have pages on MySpace. It has become almost necessary for a modern artist to have a MySpace profile, so if you're looking for a particular artist, you'll most likely find them. The audio quality is not the best, due to the compression on some music, but for all the artists you have access to on there - along with their videos, pictures and information it's a great choice.

If you sign up for an account you can add artists as friends which acts, in one sense, as a useful bookmarking system. With an account you can also download songs if the artist has made them available.

Jamendo is awesome! All music on there is under the Creative Commons licenses, which means that it is available as a free download. There are over 7,000 albums for your to sink your teeth into; you can also review them.

MP3.com is the home of thousands of both signed and unsigned artists. Like MySpace there are occasionally some free downloads to be found. On the homepage can be found a link to the Free Music Directory. Here you will find a consolidation of music available for free. You don't need an account (free) to download music, although there are many benefits to having one, such as:

• Unlimited access to free audio and video streams of new releases from major artists.

• Thousands of free mp3 music downloads from emerging independent artists.

• A MP3.com personal profile and blog.

• Online tracking of all of your favorite artists and albums.

• Tools to engage with the MP3.com community: rank, review, comment and post to the boards. Sound off!

• A free linked account to our sister sites: GameSpot and TV.com