The Sounds of the Creative Commons
April 21, 2010 8:54 PM   Subscribe

musicfilter: What are the best songs released under a creative commons license?

There have been threads about where to find creative commons released music. But what are the best songs out there? What must I hear? Archive.org is full of music but I can't feasibly go through everything. What do you like?

I'm especially looking for instrumental tracks but all responses are warmly welcomed.
posted by beardlace to Media & Arts (9 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Making Me Nervous by Brad Sucks, a.k.a. frenetic, is a MetaFilter (and personal) favorite. And I'm fond of some Jim's Big Ego songs, especially Stress and Mix Tape. I'm no help for instrumental stuff, sorry.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:09 PM on April 21, 2010 [1 favorite]


MeFi's Own Brad Sucks is good.
posted by Paragon at 9:12 PM on April 21, 2010


Response by poster: Shortly after I created my mefi account, I actually sent Brad my first ever fan letter. I was first aware of him from an unrelated youtube video almost five years ago now.
posted by beardlace at 9:24 PM on April 21, 2010


Music written by Jonathan Coulton. If you're not already on the JoCo boat, try "Re: Your Brains" or "Ikea". (This is not instrumental. This is the obvious of instrumental. But it's hilarious and awesome. Also he's been able to turn his music into a full time career, and is definitely one of the success stories of the internet/creative commons music.)
posted by anaelith at 3:42 AM on April 22, 2010


s/obvious/opposite

Also I guess I should mention it's creative commons--non-commercial only.
posted by anaelith at 3:44 AM on April 22, 2010


Brad Sucks' music is distributed by Magnatune. All the music they distribute is CC-non-commercial licensed. I'm really fond of Artemis on the same label. This may not be exactly what you're looking for because in this case CC licensed does not equal free of charge. They do have an all-you-can-eat subscription plan though.
posted by nangar at 6:52 AM on April 22, 2010


beardlace, do you need the music to have any particular CC license, or are you just looking for good tunes to groove to? And do you have any style/genre preferences?

Gratisvibes highlights especially good CC-licensed music, with an emphasis on electronica. Right now via them I'm listening to Kein Grund zufrieden zu sein (Live EP) by Endlos and enjoying it.

You could also just order the archive.org songs by average rating.
posted by brainwane at 6:56 AM on April 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: @anaelith portal got me on the Coulton boat.

@brainwane I suppose what I'm looking for is good car music and good study music. Something for driving around and something for reading. And good tunes to groove to are always nice. I have no particular style/genre/license preference. Just want to support those that support CC.

And thanks for the links! Gratisvibes is just the sort of thing I was looking for - personalized recommendations. My only concern with the archive.org top rated stuff was that the top tends to stay at the top and great things like Endlos might be missed. Amazing.
posted by beardlace at 11:22 AM on April 22, 2010


beardlace, I must now reveal the CC-licensed folk-rock songs of my partner, Leonard Richardson. I especially enjoy Omne Animal Triste ("Get Around," "Sweet & Lowbrow," "Terrestrial Minds," "Butter With Bulletproof Wings," "Mattress King") and After School Special ("Superstar," the title track, "House, M.D.," really all of them).

Sadly, Gratisvibes last posted in 2007. Its archives look useful, but here are two curated sources for CC tunes:

* Free Music Archive ("It's not just free music; it's good music"), including two launch mixes. CC blog entry mentions Jamendo.

* Share the Music! reviews. For example, the author mentioned the now-defunct German netlabel Subsource, which did a lot of electronica.
posted by brainwane at 7:32 PM on April 22, 2010


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