secretsquirrel

Find your tunes on the web

Our own Adam Pash has written the book on comprehensive web searching for a free album or song across the web's many and varied sites. From music blog aggregator Hype Machine to straight-up MP3 searches with BeeMP3 , if you can't find it on one of those sites, you've got a tried and true friend: A Google search that returns MP3s in open directories. Here's the string—just replace the "Album" and "Artist" and the like with your intended find:

Grab it from a friend

If your friend's just blatantly insisting that you check out this new album that's going to blow your mind, you could always just ask him to share his MP3s through a share-friendly online storage service — unless that friend bought their album off the iTunes store . If they can bring an iPod loaded with the tracks to your crib, you can copy music from iPod to computer , no matter what model they're rocking. If there's a distance factor, try having them install and share tracks with Mojo . The software has its quirks, but it often gets the job done. If they're DRM-protected tracks, you might try doubleTwist or DVDneXtCopy's faux-CD-burner . Those without legit access to an iTunes-bought track, though, will likely have to beg a friend to burn a CD, and then import it with a bit of audio quality loss.