Instrumental Music Ventura, Santa Barbara and Thousand Oaks' premier local, independent dealer for guitars, amps and music instruction! In the age of big-box retailers and mega-webites Instrumental Music stands as your truly unique alternative to the impersonal, no-service, no-love world. D I S C L A I M E R I am occasionally asked if it's legal to download songs found on various sites such as this one. Well, I'm neither a lawyer nor a technician, and I've begun to wonder if it was legal for us to tape music off the radio back when tape recorders first came into existence.
The internet has spoiled us with choices. The question is not where to find great content, but which of the many services work best for you. Streaming free music is no exception, so here are some of our favorite sites.
Spotify
Spotify is one of the world’s most popular music streaming services. It has a radio-like experience with some on-demand features. Free users can stream ad-supported music while paying users can stream on demand, get offline access, and listen to ad-free music.
One of the features that sets Spotify apart are its recommendations. For example, the Discover Weekly playlist is a hugely popular feature that recommends 30 songs to you each Monday based on what you’ve been listening to. This and other features have made Spotify the most popular streaming service out there with over 70 million paying users.
RELATED:Spotify Free vs. Premium: Is it Worth Upgrading?
Pandora
Pandora is a great website to stream your favorite music and discover new music as well.
As you enter your favorite genre or artist in the search box on the homepage, Pandora creates a radio station for you that includes music similar to your selection. Based on the feedback you provide, Pandora makes decisions about which music to recommend next.
Just like all other services, Pandora’s free version is ad-supported. Pandora offers two paid plans—Plus and Premium. The Plus version costs $4.99 a month and gives you access to unlimited skips, unlimited replays, and higher quality audio. The Premium version costs $9.99 per month. It includes all the Plus features, gives you the access to the entire 40 million song database, and lets you store music offline on top of all the Plus features.
Google Play Music
Google Play Music has a giant music collection, and you can search for music or artists to start streaming immediately. Alternatively, you can visit the top charts or new releases section to listen to popular tracks. You can stream some music directly, but some require you to start a radio station.
One unique feature that only Google Play Music offers is letting you upload up to 50,000 of your legally-owned songs to the Google library that you can then stream anytime.
The service is ad-supported, but you can pay for a subscription to get rid of the ads. It costs $9.99 per month, but they also offer a family plan that supports up to six members and costs $14.99 per month.
iHeartRadio
iHeartRadio is a great music streaming website where you can listen to live radio or create your own channel with your favorite artists and genres. iHeartRadio is part of the iHeartMedia group, which is the largest broadcaster in the US.
And that’s the real selling point of the service; you can use it to listen to radio stations all over the US. They run over 850 channels, set up music events, and even produce events and concerts.
SoundCloud
SoundCloud can be described as YouTube for music. It has a vast collection of music created by artists across the globe. Since it features music from independent artists, it does take a little more searching to find music you like. But, once you follow a few good artists, you can always find good music in your feed.
The free version of SoundCloud is ad-supported. It also offers a premium plan—SoundCloud Go+—that removes the ads and adds offline listening. SoundCloud Go+ runs $9.99 per month.
Another premium plan—SoundCloud Pro—is designed for the artists that share their music on SoundCloud. This plan provides higher upload limits, detailed analytics, and a few other features.
SHOUTcast
SHOUTcast is an interesting music streaming service that gives you access to over 89,000 radio stations from across the world. You can navigate the stations by Genre, or search for stations or artists. There is no sign-up required, and you can start streaming music in seconds.
But, SHOUTcast is not just a streaming service. It’s broadcasting tools allow you to start your radio station. The service is entirely free, and you can even monetize your radio station with the Targetspot Publisher Program.
AccuRadio
AccuRadio is a great place not only to stream music but also to discover new music. Unlike some websites, AccuRadio’s interface is pretty straightforward. You can click any of the recommended artists or genres on the homepage, or you can search for your favorite music and start listening immediately.
Although AccuRadio is ad-supported, it does offer unlimited skipping of songs—something that most free streaming websites don’t offer. If you like to listen on the go, you can use AccuRadio’s mobile apps which are available for Android, iOS, and many other platforms.
Last.fm
Last.fm was one one of the first social networks and streaming services before other alternatives came along. It lets you stream music freely but also discover music based on what the community is listening to. Their “Scrobbles” feature claims to track what you’re listening to and recommend other music that you’d love. “Scrobbling” is done on the Last.fm website, but you can also connect with other music services like Spotify, SoundCloud, Google Play Music to get fine-tuned recommendations based on your taste.
While we wish that we could recommend just one of these websites as the best for your streaming needs, we can’t. Everyone has a different taste in music, and the sheer amount of music available makes it impossible to declare one service the best. We recommend that you have a go at all these sites find out for yourself which ones you like the most.
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There are more websites than ever that offer free music online, so it can understandably be a little daunting to know where to look first and which free music services are the best.
That's why we've made it easy and reviewed the best places to listen to free music so that you can just pick one and get started.
These free online music sources all work a little bit differently and have many different features. You'll basically find music databases where you can search for an artist or song and listen to it on-demand, or there might be online radio stations which work more fluidly. They all have their own bells and whistles giving you just what you want.
Although these websites are all great places to listen to free music online, many are ad-based, so you'll need to listen to commercials every once in awhile. There are also sometimes rules on how often you can skip songs within a playlist or radio station. Be sure to read each website's FAQs to find out all the details.
These websites offer free music online but if you want to keep the music you hear, you'll want to find out where you can download free music. You also might like to know where the best places online are to watch free music videos, plus which music apps are the best.
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Spotify
What We Like
- All the music is free
- Includes modern and older music
- Create unlimited playlists
- Works on a variety of devices
- More features can be had if you pay
What We Don't Like
- Can't stream specific songs on-demand
- Must make a user account
- Limits the number of songs you can skip every hour
- Some features work only if you pay
- Shows ads
Spotify is an awesome free music streaming website with millions of songs available for you to listen to whenever you want and as many times as you want.
Spotify acts as a radio, which means you'll hear songs from artists you've heard of and want to listen to.
The free music online through Spotify is played through a web browser, mobile device, or desktop manager that you can download to your computer.
Once you're up and going you can search and listen to your favorite music, create playlists, and share the music you love with all your friends. You can even access other people's handmade playlists, like this Indie Chillout playlist.
The premium plan is available, which lets you download Spotify music, listen without ads, stream HQ music, play any song you want any time you want, and skip songs as often as you like. You can get it free for 30 days before payments kick in.
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Google Play Music
What We Like
- Lots of ways to find specific types of music
- Works in several countries
- Stream your own music files
- Build custom playlists
- Subscriptions are available for more features
What We Don't Like
- Must sign in to your Google account
- Can't stream on multiple devices simultaneously
- Doesn't let you play specific music on-demand
- Shows ads
Google Play Music is one of the fastest-growing places to listen to free music online.
They have a giant library of music and you can listen to your favorites by searching for them or visiting the top charts or new releases. Most are free to listen to with the occasional ad, but some can only be used to start a radio.
With radio stations, you can browse for ones based on certain genres, decades, activities, or moods, and a whole category meant just for kids.
Google Play Music also has podcasts and lets you upload your own music to listen from anywhere.
You can get a paid subscription to Google Play to get rid of those ads and remove restrictions put on the free plan. There's also a family plan for six people. Both are free for the first 30 days.
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Pandora
What We Like
- Works really well for finding music you might like
- Up to 100 playlists can be made for free
- Runs on many different devices
- All the music is free to listen to
- You can pay for more features
What We Don't Like
- A user account is required
- Doesn't let you select particular tracks to listen to
- Includes ads
- Has a per-day song skip limit
Pandora is a great place to listen to free music online from your favorite artists but an even better place to discover new music that you're sure to like as well.
Enter an artist, genre, or composer into Pandora and they'll create an online streaming radio station based on what you like. As you listen to your radio station you'll hear songs and artists that are similar to ones you already like. You'll then be able to tell Pandora if you want to hear more like what you're listening to or move in a different direction.
You're not limited to the free online music of one radio station either — you can create up to 100 unique stations that only contain music that you love.
If you're not sure where to start, try Top Stations or jump right into any specific genre.
Besides listening to free music online that Pandora offers, you can also download a free Pandora app for your mobile device.
Pandora Premium and Pandora Plus are the ad-free, paid versions of Pandora that include features like a desktop program, higher audio quality, offline listening, and more. You can also get Pandora Premium Family for six people, and discounts if you're a student or in the military.
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iHeartRadio
What We Like
- Has lots of radio stations
- Lets you make your own radio stations
- Works without commercials
- You don't need to make a user account to listen
- You can pay for more features
What We Don't Like
- You can't play specific songs on-demand
- The service contains advertisements
- Only a specific number of songs can be skipped per day
iHeartRadio combines a live radio app and a custom music streaming service into one awesome website and app.
You can listen to live radio stations by choosing the city and genre that you like, and iHeartRadio will display all the stations that match your search criteria, after which you can begin listening immediately.
If you'd rather not listen to the radio, you can build your own custom stations that's like a radio station but is instead built around the songs and artists you already know you like. This works by telling iHeartRadio what you want to listen to, and it will play songs similar to the ones you define.
The iHeartRadio mobile app supports a sleep timer so you can listen to music as you fall asleep, as well as an alarm to automatically begin playing any of your favorite stations in the morning.
To play specific songs, replay music from the radio, listen offline, build an unlimited number of playlists, skip more songs, etc., you have to pay for Plus or All Access.
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LiveXLive
What We Like
- Streams music based on your likes
- You can listen to stations made by others
- The website is clean and easy to use
- All the music is 100 percent free
- Subscriptions let you pay for additional features
What We Don't Like
- Doesn't let you pick which songs to play
- Has audio and visual ads
- You can't skip over an unlimited number of songs
LiveXLive (previously called Slacker Radio) is similar to some of these other music streaming websites in that it lets you create custom radio stations that are built around the songs, genres, and artists that you enjoy.
After choosing the type of music you like to listen to, LiveXLive will stream similar music mixed in with the songs you suggested.
LiveXLive also lets you find stations that have already been put together, which is a great way to discover new music while at the same time listening to the songs you probably already know you enjoy. This service also includes live festivals and events.
The LiveXLive service works from various mobile devices through their free app.
You can buy a subscription to LiveXLive for more features. There's a Plus version with no ads, unlimited skips, and maximum audio quality, while Premium includes those features as well as offline listening and the ability to play any music on demand.
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TuneIn
What We Like
- Includes thousands of live radio stations
- Stations can be favorited for easy access later
- Finding stations you like is easy
- You don't have to make a user account to use the TuneIn website
What We Don't Like
- Doesn't let you pick which specific songs to listen to
TuneIn is probably the best place to listen to live radio stations over the internet. It's dead simple to find the stations local to your area but also ones from anywhere else on the globe — there are 100,000+ stations!
Radio stations can also be browsed by music, sports, news, and talk genre so you can find anything from rock, ambient, and religious music to tennis stations, business news, and travel radio stations.
A good place to start is with the trending radio stations so you can see what most of the other TuneIn users are listening to right now. This music streaming site also hosts podcasts.
TuneIn works from a web browser or desktop program on a computer, as well as through mobile apps. You can store your favorite stations in your account to have access to them on all your devices.
For more features like no ads or commercials, you can upgrade to TuneIn Premium, which includes 30 days free.
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SoundCloud
What We Like
- Constantly updated with new content
- One of the best ways to find new artists and bands
- Lets you listen to any song on demand
- You can move back and forward through songs at will
- Minimalist design
- Also includes podcasts
What We Don't Like
- Doesn't include many of the same songs you hear from other music streaming services
SoundCloud works by users and artists uploading music for you to freely listen to, so there's both up-and-coming and homemade audio that you can find here.
You're able to explore the site through genre like Disco, Electronic, Country, and Ambient, among others, as well as by what's trending. There's also a search tool so you can quickly find artists, tracks, bands, and even podcasts.
Following users lets you stay on top of their new releases, and you can like tracks and playlists to store them in your personal music collection.
Free SoundCloud mobile apps are also available with SoundCloud.
SoundCloud Go+ lets you listen without an internet connection, removes ads, offers high quality listening, and gives you access to premium tracks. A free 30-day trial available.
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Deezer
What We Like
- Specific and unique genres to choose from
- Apps are available for phones, tablets, computers, wearables, and more
- Helps you discover new music based on your likes
What We Don't Like
- Shows ads
- Streams at standard quality, not HD
Deezer is a slick music streaming website with lots of genres to choose from, plus radio stations, and fun pre-made mixes.
Play individual songs or whole collections at once, add music to your own custom playlists that you can play back and share with others, and easily access all the most popular songs on Deezer on one page.
Apps for listening to Deezer music are available for your computer and mobile device, and other places like in your car.
Deezer Premium is free for 30 days and lets you listen to any track you want with no ads, plus you get offline access to your music and high-quality streams. Other subscriptions include Deezer HiFi and Deezer Family.
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Dash Radio
What We Like
- Streams radio stations online
- Multiple ways to find a new radio station to listen to
- Sharing radio stations is easy
- Mobile apps let you listen to the radio on the go
What We Don't Like
- Limited selection of genres
- Some genres have just a couple radio stations
Dash Radio is another internet radio website where you can stream free music. It has dozens of stations in lots of different genres.
Find a station by genre or through the search to start streaming music immediately. You can add any station to your dashboard for easy access in the future, and you can share them with others over social media websites and email.
Apps for Dash Radio are available for Android, iOS, and Amazon devices. It also works with Google Home and other devices.
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8tracks
What We Like
- Lets you browse for music by mood
- You can listen free without creating a user account
- Apps are available for lots of devices
What We Don't Like
- Ads are shown
- Streaming time is limited
The free online music at 8tracks is grouped into playlists that are put together by you or by another 8tracks listener. Some examples include happy, feel good, chill, love, summer, dance, sad, and study.
It's a fun way you can become your own DJ or appreciate that someone else took the time to create the perfect mix for whatever mood you're in. You can even combine multiple searches into one to find unique playlists.
Free apps for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and other devices are available for 8tracks.
To remove ads and get unlimited listening, you'll have to pay for 8tracks Plus. There's a 14-day trial before you're charged.
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Myspace
What We Like
- Lets you play specific music of your choice
- You can skip forward and back through any song
- No user account is needed
- Shows videos along with the songs
Myspace used to be a really popular social networking site, but it's been remade into a music platform. You can hear songs you know and discover new tracks, and you don't even need a Myspace account to do it.
You can find music on Myspace by searching for the artist or song name, but there are also many genres to choose from and a section for mixes such as Top Country Songs on Myspace, Top Pop Songs on Myspace, and others for alternative indie songs, rock music, best songs by year, and more.
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Jango
What We Like
- Streams radio stations made by other users
- Lots of genres to find new radio stations
- It's easy to find trending and popular radio stations
- There are mobile apps
- Listen without making a user account
What We Don't Like
- Can't play specific songs, only premade stations
- There's a limit on the number of times non-users can skip songs
- Strange website design
Jango is another free streaming radio station and they make it super easy to listen to free music online from your computer, phone, or tablet.
You'll be creating your own custom radio station based on artists that you like and what you think of similar artists.
The aspect that makes Jango unique is that you can listen to other user's radio stations and they can listen to yours.
Visit the Trending station to jump right into the most popular radio stations, or pick from any of the genres listed on the home page.
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MusixHub
What We Like
- Streams video with the songs
- You can replay the same songs over and over
- Lets you skip to any part during a song
What We Don't Like
- Sometimes slower than other similar sites because videos are loaded, too
- Connects you to premade albums, not individual songs you search for
Another source of unlimited free music is MusixHub. This website works by connecting the albums you want to the music videos of those songs on YouTube. The cool thing is that you never leave the MusixHub website.
Once you find the right album you want, all the songs are listed on the side of the page and you can pick which ones to listen to.
You can search or browse for artists even without having a user account with MusixHub or YouTube. However, if you log on to your Facebook account, you can save the albums and artists you love to a private library.
Some of the genres you'll find at MusixHub include electronic, punk, dance, new wave, alternative, rock, pop, and rap.
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AccuRadio
What We Like
- Streams radio internet
- Lets you skip songs an unlimited number of times
- Every day, a different genre has commercial-free music
- A user account isn't required
AccuRadio is like some of the other online radios in this list. You can browse for a station by genre or have AccuRadio pick a random one for you if you're not sure what you want to listen to. Or, maybe you want to listen to the most popular music they have.
You can sign up for a free user account with AccuRadio to hear fewer commercials, customize your channel to better suit your tastes, and save channels as favorites.
However, if you use AccuRadio on certain days, according to this schedule, you can listen to music with zero commercials!
There's also a handful of AccuRadio mobile apps so that you can listen on other devices.
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Mixcloud
What We Like
- Lots of ways to find a radio station
- All the music is handpicked by real people
- Apps let you listen from a phone or tablet
- A user account isn't required (it is from the mobile app)
What We Don't Like
- It's supported by ads
- Can't listen to specific songs on demand
- You might not be able to seek backwards during a song, only forward
- Songs can't be skipped
Mixcloud is a unique place to get free music online, asking you to 're-think radio.' All the music here is put together by DJ's and radio presenters from around the world, making for a different listening experience than what you may be used to.
You can sort these mixes, radio shows, and music podcasts by mood or genre as well as searchable tags.
There are Mixcloud apps available for iPhone/iPad and Android if you'd rather listen on your phone or tablet. It's also available for Apple TV.
For more features like zero ads and early access to new features, you might consider getting Mixcloud Premium or Pro.
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StreamSquid
What We Like
- Plays songs directly from YouTube, but without the videos
- You have full control over playback: unlimited skips and scrubbing
- Playing all songs from a search is really easy
- Lots of ways to find music
What We Don't Like
- No iOS app
- Doesn't let you import YouTube playlists
StreamSquid is another free music streaming service you can start using right now without even making a user account. What makes this website different than the ones above is that it lets you play YouTube songs without seeing the videos.
You get to stream all your favorite YouTube music by searching for the artist or song title. StreamSquid also includes its own music collection and has several ways to help you find your new favorite songs.
It's easy to see the popular music here because there's a dedicated Popular page, but beyond that, you can search for specific tracks, albums, and artists, and browse the editor's picks, top charts from various countries, new releases, genres, and more.
You can listen from your computer or through the StreamSquid Android app.