FREE/BARGAIN — Media Deals (non-eBook/non-audiobook)

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Well, most of those albums charted in the top 15 (the worst one was like #38) so I'd say they are popular artists depending on the audience.

These are currently albums that sell well so I'm sure at least some Microsoft customers will be happy to get them for free instead of paying $8-$12 each.

Very good. The problem is, I am just out of touch with popular music today. At one time in the recent past, I halfway knew the popular metal rock groups, because I regularly listened to radio stations which played their music. But I don't even recognize the newer groups in that subgenre anymore. The world has moved on without me; I haven't kept up. I don't know that I really want to catch up at this time, either, although that may mean that I'm missing out of something that would enrich my life, improve the quality of my life, etc.

However, I will say that, oddly to me, sometimes an album will do well (sometimes very well), but none of the singles on it chart very high. It would be interesting to check that for these albums, and I'll do that if I have enough time in the next day or two to work on it. Personally, I'm not interested in an album from even an artist that I think is good, if that album does not have any of his or her better songs on it. Generally, I will not buy an album unless there is at least one or two high-charting songs on it--I will buy the single(s). That seems to make more economic sense, to me, than spending $8-$10 for an album, but maybe never listening to more than two or three songs on it.

[GtrsRGr8]

Get out your hankies (handkerchiefs). Today is Friday. And that means a two-day break, after today, from getting free classical music pieces from YourClassical. They'll be resuming again Monday.

But, there is still today's freebie to tell you about.

(Drum roll, please . . . .). It's a 2 minute, 28 second MP3 piece from Witold Lutoslawski, from a Naxos album called Twenty Polish Christmas Carols. Pieces on the album are performed by Polish Radio Choir and Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. Olga Pasichnyk handles the soprano, while Antoni Wit is the conductor.

Frankly, folks, there are so many names and other pieces of information about an album floating around that it is hard for me sometimes to untangle them and tease out of them the information about the specific piece that we are offered free from an album. That's the case with this one. Surely, that reflects my ignorance of much about classical music plus, in this case, trying to cross the language barrier from English to Polish.

At any rate, full information about the entire album is available here. I think that the piece that we can get free is the carol called Hey la, Hey la, shepherds there you are. Stream and/or download the freebie from this webpage.

As always, I listen to all free classical music giveaways before I post them. This one is no exception. The piece has choir singing--it sounds like a boys' choir, which I suppose is an adjunct to the "Polish Radio Choir" that is credited with performing part of the album. The tune itself has nothing about it that really stands out to me. However, it's certainly worth downloading, and listening to over the years around the Christmas season, at least.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Free from Sirius/XM The Brian Setzer Orchestra Holiday Download (MP3).
http://happyholidays.siriusxmevents.com/

There are download links for each track and below that a link to download the entire album at once...

• The Nutcracker Suite
• Jingle Bells
• Carol Of The Bells
• Deck The Halls
• Angels We Have Heard On High
• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
• O Little Town Of Bethlehem
• Swingin’ Joy (“Joy To The World”)
• Take A Break Guys (“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”)
• O Holy Night
• The Amens

Gr8 find. Thanks.

[GtrsRGr8]

Inadvertent duplicate (more or less). The next post is the one that I'll keep.

[GtrsRGr8]

This classical music freebie sort of sneaked up on me

I think that we get freebies from Classical-music.com once a week. Going back and checking my records, it's been a couple of days over a week since they last posted a freebie.

This free download is The Holly and the Ivy. Here's the blurb about the piece, from Classical-music.com:
This week's free download is The Holly and the Ivy, arranged by Sir Henry Walford Davies and performed by the choir of St John's College, Cambridge.

The recording received a four-star review in the Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine. 'Excellent engineering captures evocatively the atmosphere of St John's College chapel,' writes Terry Riley.

In case you are like me, and didn't recognize the title of the song, I can assure you that you will recognize the song when you play it--it has a very familiar tune, that I'm sure that all of us have heard many times around Christmastime. This is a choir piece, not normally one of my favorite kinds of music, but this one was very pleasant and probably the prettiest choir piece, IMHO, that we have received as a classical music freebie, from any provider before.

This piece runs 2 minutes and 54 seconds and is formatted MP3.

I didn't find any additional information at Classical-music.com about the album (full disclosure: but I didn't do a search either). However, I found this additional information at iTunes about the album: the album from which our free piece is taken is called Christmas with St John's - The Choir of St. John's College Cambridge, Joseph Wicks & Andrew Nethsingha. The album is published by Signum Records, and was very recently released (just this past October).

The download procedure for the free piece is the same as always. Make sure that you have an account with Classical-music.com first. Log in. Navigate to this webpage. If you are, in fact, logged in, you should see a bright red "Download Now" button superimposed over the thumbnail of the album cover. Click on it. The piece will automatically download itself to wherever your downloaded things go. Listen and enjoy.

BTW--thanks to someone mentioning VisualPing in a post, I requested that VisualPing notify me of changes in the websites of the classical music freebie webpages. Major changes on the webpages would indicate that a new freebie had been posted. Well, that worked for a while. But someone with their free account, like me, has a limited amount of "credits," and I've used them all up! I don't consider this all my fault, because I kept getting messages from VisualPing that there had been "huge" change in this webpage or that webpage, but when I checked I could detect no difference in the webpages (meaning that there was no new freebie; the old one was still up).

[GtrsRGr8]

About the only kind of free music that I post on this thread is classical. It isn't by design, it just turns out that way. Maybe it's because there is more of that kind offered free on the Internet than any other? I dunno.

Anyway, I found the free album below from a company called Burger Records, an indie label. Before I post the free album, it might be helpful to you to read a description of the company, because, in this case, it may give you a good idea about the type of music that they produce:
Sean Borhman and Lee Rickard founded Burger Records in 2007 as a way to release albums by their own band, Thee Makeout Party, but soon discovered they enjoyed releasing their friends' records even more. Six years later, Burger stands as a testament to the power of pure, boundless enthusiasm about music. All of the bands on Burger bury pop hooks beneath layers of fuzz, and the label feels like a living document of below-the-radar indie rock. It is a multicolored cartoon universe worth getting lost in.

Anyway, the album is from a group called "Part Time." The name of the album is Virgo's Maze. There are 20 free tracks. They are all MP3's. Burger Records describes it as "20 tracks of weirdo disco synth-pop garage madness." Uh huh.

To receive the free album, point your web browser to this Burger Records webpage. Follow the directions to "click the [album] cover to download the MP3!!!" The tracks download to Dropbox; if you don't have an account with Dropbox, you may need to set one up.

I have not listened to any of the album (yet). If I had to guess I'd say that this is probably going to be Alternative, Punk, or Rock music, or some combination of the the three.

[ATDrake]

Video game publisher UbiSoft has been running an advent calendar promotion. Mostly it's been for things like free wallpapers and recipes (still available to download), but today they are re-running their anniversary freebie video games offer from earlier this year, so you can get all 7 if you missed out.

Free titles are The Crew, Rayman Origins, Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed 3, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Beyond Good & Evil, Splinter Cell.

Catch up through this weekend until the end of Dec 18th @ UbiSoft's UbiClub (Windows only, requires free club membership signup and can only be played through their uPlay app)

NB: The UbiClub page seems highly dependent on Flash/JavaScript and sometimes seems to go blank and refuse to load at all. This is a sign you should dump your cookies and login again, or try from a different browser if it's still not working.

[GtrsRGr8]

Get a free MP3 of George Frideric Handel - Messiah: His yoke is easy, His burthen is light, performed by Scholars Baroque Ensemble. This comes courtesy of YourClassical.

The MP3 comes from the Naxos 2-CD album Handel - The Messiah - Der Messias - Le Messie. Oddly, I see no name credited with that of being conductor--that is a first for me since I've been trying to find free classical music to post! Anyway, find out much, other than that fact, on this Naxos webpage dedicated to the album.

As always with all of these YourClassical freebies, the piece is formatted in MP3. This particular piece is 2 minutes, 22 seconds long.

I've listened to the entire piece and it is beautiful rendition of this particular Handel piece. Stream it by going to this YourClassical webpage. On that same webpage, you may download the free piece by clicking on "Direct MP3 download link."

One final note (well, until tomorrow, at least. heehee). A little over a week ago, Naxos newsletter subscribers received an offer of one free album from a choice of three. One was Handel: Messiah (Highlights). To be honest, I don't remember if today's freebie was on that album. If it is, and you selected that album, you may not have wish to have this additional rendition of the same piece. However, I feel sure that this piece that we are being offered free today is prettier than what you get on that album. On the negative side, the album offered then is formatted in the superior quality flac format, where this free piece today is formatted in the lossy MP3 format.

[GtrsRGr8]

Today, YourClassical is providing a free 5 minute, 58 second MP3 piece, Christmas Oratorio: Part II Sinfonia. It was written/composed by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The piece comes from the Naxos album, The Very Best of Christmas, "a 2 CD set of Christmas favorites by the very best classical composers." Looking at the dedicated webpage at Naxos for the album, one cannot help but notice how far and wide they have gone to collect the pieces for this album. You might wish to give the webpage a look.

Our particular piece is performed by the Budapest Failoni Chamber Orchestra. Geza Oberfrank is the conductor. After having listened to it, I found it to be a very pleasant piece, almost serene. It does not have a "catchy" tune like many classical pieces, however. The orchestra and conductor does a fine job.

YourClassical is one classical music provider which does not require that a person set up an account to listen to and download their freebies. Stream and/or download the free piece from this webpage. To download the free piece, click on "Direct MP3 download link," and the piece will automatically be downloaded to your default drive.

[AnemicOak]

Twenty One Pilots is offering a free download of TOP x MM (The Mutemath Sessions) through January 18th.

http://www.twentyonepilots.com/TOPxMM?ref=

No email or anything required, just folow the link and scroll down to where it says Download.

5 tracks total in a zip file (MP3 format)

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Twenty One Pilots is offering a free download of TOP x MM (The Mutemath Sessions) through January 18th.

http://www.twentyonepilots.com/TOPxMM?ref=

No email or anything required, just folow the link and scroll down to where it says Download.

5 tracks total in a zip file (MP3 format)

I hope that they're as good as Stone Temple Pilots.

I've got music of Twenty One Pilots queued up on Spotify right now to check 'em out.

Thanks.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I hope that they're as good as Stone Temple Pilots.

I've got music of Twenty One Pilots queued up on Spotify right now to check 'em out.

Thanks.

They're a good group. Their music is the kind that I can envision (en-hear? ha) "growing on" me after listening to them for a while.

Their music is definitely eclectic. I'm not good at identifying some music genres, but rap is definitely dominant. There is also some caribbean (think of Jamaica and Bob Marley maaan). Some rock, some alternative.

Gr8 finds. Definite downloads.

[GtrsRGr8]

Download the approximately 3 minute, 43 second carol simply called Christmas Eve, as Classical-music.com's freebie of the week.

Here's what Classical-music.com says about it:
This week's free download is traditional, but little-known, carol Christmas Eve. It is performed by The Sixteen on their latest festive release, Song of the Nativity, our Christmas Choice.

'The Sixteen give a masterclass in the art of unaccompanied singing, and a close emotional engagement with the pieces chosen,' writes Terry Blain. 'Their consummate technical ability has long been legendary, but it's their ability to put the music front and centre which is truly special.'

My opinion: it's a very pleasant, calming choral piece.

This free piece is taken from an album called Song of the Nativity - The Sixteen, published by a company that I have not heard of before: CORO.

Think that you want to go ahead and download the free MP3? If so, follow the usual routine. If you have an account (you must have one in order to get the free piece), log in if you're not already. A bright red button with "Download Now" should appear on top of the thumbnail of the album cover, located on this webpage. The piece should start downloading to your default drive immediately.

[GtrsRGr8]

Today's free classical piece from YourClassical is a repeat for us--of sorts.

This past week's Classical-music.com's free album was The Holly and the Ivy. See post #1235 of this thread. I posted it on 12/16, but I think that it had been up for a day or so before I remembered to check for it. Each freebie from them is supposed to last one week, I think. However, it was still up when I checked just a few minutes ago, although a new one is up now, too.

Well, YourClassical's free piece today is from an album of The Holly And The Ivy, also. The piece is I Saw Three Ships. However, this piece is from a completely different album than the Classical-music.com album. The most noticeable difference (and it's a big one) in the music is that the Classical-music.com album is a choral piece and this free piece sounds like it is entirely of the violin.

Gaeylnn Lea is credited as the violinist. However, I hear at least two violin parts in the song, which I suppose would be considered to make a two-part harmony. I don't know if this was created from overdubbing (I think that it is called), in which Ms. Lea could have performed the entire piece, or that there were actually two or more violinists used in the recording session, with Ms. Lea being one of them. This rendition of the song is 3 minutes, 38 seconds long. Like the Classical-music.com album, this free piece is formatted in MP3.

The name of the album that the piece comes from is Deepest Darkness, Brightest Dawn. Unlike with most YourClassical freebies, no separate, dedicated webpage is provided by them for the album. According to information at Amazon, the label is CD Baby (no, I'm not kidding, that's really the name).

To stream or download the piece, you must navigate to this webpage--http://www.yourclassical.org/story/2...aw-three-ships. The stream bar is obvious. To download the item, click (or tap for you fellow laptop users) the "Direct MP3 download link."

I usually make some kind of comment about how I well that I liked a particular piece or album, but I will pass on that this time. I do not care for dominant violin in a song, and this one is entirely of violin(s). I probably wouldn't have much good to say about it. YMMV, certainly.

Oh, and the correct name for the instrument is not violin. It is fiddle. Fiddle. ha

[GtrsRGr8]

Music publisher BIS has an album called Christmas in Sweden. They bill it as having "traditional Christmas music performed by the foremost Swedish artists."

From that album, YourClassical is able to offer free to us today a piece by Gustaf Nordqvist, Christmas, radiant Christmas. It is an MP3 formatted piece that is 2 minutes, 23 seconds long. It is performed by Uppsala Musikklasser, which I suppose is some kind of chorus or choir, based upon the fact that the piece is performed by a chorus or choir (perceptive, aren't I? ).

I can't say that I ever heard of the composer, Gustaf Nordqvist, before or, for that matter the song Christmas, Radiant Christmas. But, IMHO, it is a beautiful piece and I could wish that it lasted much longer than it does. In lieu of that, it's one that lends itself to using the "repeat" function on your device or app, in order to hear it several times in succession.

On the dedicated webpage at YourClassical for the free piece, there is a link to more information about the album from which the free piece is taken. Unfortunately, that link leads to a Naxos webpage with no information about the piece or the album. What you can find on the dedicated webpage for the free piece is a way to stream the piece and a link, "Direct MP3 download link," that you can click on in order to download the piece to your device.