Listen to millions of music tracks online

Music has never been as easily accessible as it is today. The invention of the MP3 file format has turned the music industry on its head. A pocket-sized music player can now hold thousands of songs, but it is also easier for people to download music illegally.

Digital music can now be bought legally through legitimate online shops but there is another, newer option. Services have appeared with extensive catalogues of music you can enjoy legally and free. Here we explain how they work and explore whether they could replace music stores entirely.

Listen for nothing
Some music executives and songwriters have protested that their work has been devalued by easy online access, but for the listener the internet is a haven for both old favourites and new music.

Free music, available whenever you want, sounds too good to be true but there is now a multitude of websites and services, such as We7 and Last.fm, where you can stream tracks from vast catalogues of music to your PC. There is also Spotify, which is another great way to enjoy free music.

Although both We7 and Last.fm let you listen to free music, there are subtle differences between how the two sites work. Last.fm is a music-streaming website that also includes lots of social-networking tools, so you can find online friends or join groups with similar music tastes.

An audio player sits in the top right of the page. You can freely browse the available music, but to play a song you will have to open an account. You can watch videos on the site, too.

The We7 site allows you to buy and download songs, with no digital rights management (DRM) restrictions, or stream free music with short adverts at the start of each track. You can play tracks without signing up for an account using the player built into the page.

However, if you create an account and log into the site, you can create and save playlists, buy music and earn credits for an advert-free day of listening to music from the site.

Internet radio is another source of free online music. As with traditional radio broadcasts you cannot choose specific songs: pick a station and you will hear whatever is being broadcast. There are, however, countless radio stations to choose from with many catering to niche genres of music.

The best place to start looking is on a site that collates them. Live365 and Shoutcast are good places to start. Stations are categorised by genre and rated by users so it’s easy to find something you like.