Saturday, January 09, 2010

Free Music: Streaming Albums & Downloads from Vampire Weekend, Laura Veirs, Spoon, Elvis Cover Tunes, & More

There's plenty of free music to start the new year off with a bang in the form of podcast downloads and streaming CDs; here's a look at some of the notable offerings.

There are some great free streaming albums from NPR Music available now and other the next month or so in their "First Listen" series; here is the schedule:
* Laura Veirs, July Flame - until Jan. 12
* Vampire Weekend, Contra (also streaming free at KCRW) - Jan. 5 to 12
* Spoon, Transference - Jan. 11 to 19
* Patty Griffin, Downtown Church - Jan. 15 to 26
* Charlotte Gainsbourg, IRM - Jan. 18 to 26

If you want to take the music with you, check out the recent free music podcast downloads that are available. Here are some new ones:
* Coverville offers Coverville Countdown, a four-episode survey of the most popular covers of all time, chosen by listeners. Also new on Coverville is part two of its Elvis Presley cover songs podcast.
* CBC Radio 3 is out with part one of its Best Songs of the 2000s podcast, featuring the station's choices of the best Canadian indie tunes of the last decade.
* L.A. band Sea Wolf appears live in KCRW's studios for the first Morning Becomes Eclectic live podcast in the new year. You may still be able to download the previous in-studio performance, by London quartet One Eskimo.
* New releases by Yeasayer, the Shout Out Louds, Danger Mouse, and Freelance Whale are among those played in the first free podcast download of 2010 from All Songs Considered.
* The Kinks Choral Concert, a live version of Kinks songs performed with accompaniment by, you guessed it, a classical choral group, is available for download from NPR Music's concert series. It may sound like an odd combination, but Kinks leader Ray Davies makes the idea work.

Happy listening!

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