Before I get to the tracks, I want to talk a little about finding free (legal, of course) music on the net.

It’s a pain in the ass.

But I’m gonna make it all better, right now.

By far the easiest way to find music you like is by reading iPod Nirvana :) Ok… really… MP3 blogs are great, because once you find one that links up music you’re into, you’ve got a good base to start from. You know that the host has already listened to the music and thinks it’s worth a listen. Some blogs, like 3hive will pick a specific band or label and give you a full review. Others (like us) pretty much give you some tracks and let the music speak for itself.

No matter what the format is, the second benefit of reading MP3 blogs is discovering other sources. I will always give at least a list to the places where I found the tracks, and most others do as well. But what if they don’t?

The source is always there… in the URL of the song. Sometimes it can be a bit of challenge to get to it, but it’s usually worth it, because, if you can get to the source, you’re almost positive to find more music you like.

What I do a lot of times is copy the URL into the location field of my browser, and then delete everything but the domain name. Whether it ends up being the band’s site, their label, an online store, or a free MP3 clearing-house like Download.com or GarrageBand.com, 99% of the time, I find more stuff that I like just as much… or more than the original track.

Another great thing about MP3 blogs are their links. From there, you’re going to find more blogs, community forums, clearinghouses… and reason follows that if you like the stuff on the blog, you’re gonna like a lot of the places they link to.

Before you know it, your bookmarks and/or RSS reader are going to be full, your playlists will be miles long, and your iPod… well… it’ll be happy :)

Okay… I’ll shut up now, and get on with the music. Hope this starts your week off right.

• Echoboy: Automatic Eyes
• Sweet Heart: on/off
• Crashmachine: Walk In The Sun
• Jon Sebastian: You’re Fired (originally heard at Up The Tree)

Todays sources: insound, GarageBand.com, dmusic, and JonSebastian.com (in that order).