How To Find Podsafe Music
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the last month trying to find good music that is podcast friendly, legal to freely share and/or “podsafe.” To be quite honest it’s been a struggle, but it has gotten easier as I’ve discovered new ways to find good music to add to my podcast. It’s not not exactly easy but it’s manageable and seems to get better as the days tick by.
I really wish I’d known many of the avenues to find podsafe music a few weeks ago though, so I thought I’d take a few minutes and write up some of the things I’ve learned. Below are several things you can try, and a few places you can look, to find good podsafe music. As always, when in doubt check with the artist or label before you assume something is podsafe, I can’t guarantee everything you find from these tips is legal to share.
Creative Commons Licenced Music
Creative Commons licenced music is great for Podcasting. You’ll find that under most CC licenses you’re safe to share via podcast.
But one of the things that frustrated me the most was the lack of good, non-electronic, CC licenced music. There is some out there, but it’s a bit hard to locate, which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as many bands shouldn’t be expected to know about CC just yet.
Still, there are a few places you can look specifically for CC licenced music:
- The Creative Commons site itself has some good links, but most of the sites they link to are mainly electronica and you’ll find lots of dead ends.
- CC Mixter is a much better bet for CC licenced music. There is some great stuff in here and you can spend quite a bit of time exploring and listening.
- The Music Lovers Union. Here you can find some podcasts that are focused on bring you the best of (mostly) CC muisc.
Netlables and Archive.org
Netlables are a decent source for podsafe music, again, if you are looking for electronic-style music. I’ve found a few of them a bit hard to navigate and sometimes it’s pretty unclear as to whether or not something would be ok to share. I have found that if you ask, you’ll usually get a thumbs up.
- Magnatune has some decent music, but they’ve not made it all that easy to determine what’s podsafe and what’s not. And they don’t post MP3, which to me anyway, was a barrier to getting the music.
- The Netlabels page at Archive.org has a good list of netlabels to choose from and you don’t have to go anywhere else to listen to the music. Many of these are also clearly marked with CC licenses as well.
Live Music @ Archive.org
Speaking of The Internet Archive, their live music archive has some great stuff. It wears thin after awhile, unless you’re into (and don’t take this wrong) hippie-jam-band music, but there is some great stuff in there and it seems to be growing all the time. I personally am planning an all-live podcast in a few weeks. Should be fun.
Garageband.com
While not all the music at Garageband.com is podsafe, or even any good, I have found quite a few decent songs in there and would rate it very promising overall. They did take a big step forward in helping podcasers find music and seem committed to helping people find out about and share music.
MP3 Music Blogs
These can be a bit risky, but if you’re willing to dig a bit you can find some really good music for you podcast on blogs that post mp3. What’s more, with many of them you can subscribe to their feeds and pull songs down automatically to listen to at your leisure. Kind of like a mini-podcast.
Some of my favorite mp3 blogs:
Other podcasts
One of the best ways to find music is by listening to other music podcasts. Often times they’ll talk about the music they’re sharing and how they found it and many (like myself) will have information about the bands, labels and Web sites where they got their music.
Labels and artists Web sites and pages
I’ve found some of my favorite music via record label sites, mostly indie or small labels like Sub Pop who just made a bunch of music available to podcasters. I find that if a label posts mp3s on their sites, they are usually pretty cool with sharing via a podcast. I would suggest you ask before you assume though.
As well, getting in touch with the artists themselves is a great way to find music. Sometimes they’ll have mp3s posted directly to their site and I’ve had good luck contacting them directly. I’ve got a few CD’s on the way, for example, from artists I’ve featured. And I’ve only been at it 3 weeks.
One last place you can check is an artists page on MySpace. While the mp3’s aren’t explicitly labeled “podsafe” or anything, it’s a fair bet that if you find something you like there you can get permission to share it.
Well, there you’ve got my tips so far, I hope they help. Still being new to this I suspect I’ll have more to come. In fact, if you know of something I don’t, please share it in the comments!