

Merge began in 1989 as two bandmates (Laura Ballance and McCaughan of Superchunk) releasing 7-inch singles for their friends. The trend of artists selling their own music via fan sites was arguably popularized by Radiohead with its album "In Rainbows." For artists who can't afford their own Web site, Bandcamp is a great way to get music out to the public, and for the listener the site comes with best-seller charts and music discovery features.Īrcade Fire's "Funeral," available from Merge Records, may be the best album of the '00s.


As a result, it's one of the most diverse catalogs of music available under one roof and a good place to start looking for new releases.īandcamp is a great way to buy new music directly from the artist HDtracks isn't a label as such but a repository for dozens of different labels, including heavy hitters like Warner Music, jazz labels such as Blue Note, and classical offerings by Naxos. HDtracks has one of the biggest collections of lossless FLAC files for sale on the Web.Īrtists: Rolling Stones, Beach House, R.E.M. Know of another site that sells (legal) downloads? Leave your suggestion in the comments section! If you're interested in higher-than-CD quality, some of the following sites also offer 24-bit "HD" downloads for an extra charge. You'll find that most of these sites are independent and that's because major labels have yet to embrace fully lossless downloads, presumably because of the ever-present "piracy concerns."īelow are the best stores that sell the FLAC format. While we cover how to rip your own music to FLAC format here, there are several sites that offer FLAC album downloads for less than the price of a CD, and yet offer the same level of quality. Like MP3s, there are two main ways to get FLACs legally: rip them from CDs, or buy them directly.
