I know this will come as no surprise to many, but surfing through the American Amazon site as I don't usually do, I happened upon an area called "free downloads" under the rather well hidden music menu.
Normally sites like this that feature freebies feature freebies noone has ever heard of or have them wrapped in so much DRM you can never listen to them. Kudos to Amazon that neither of these factors are true. On the front page of the downloads page today is an exclusive Moby b-side, a couple of new Aimee Mann tracks and a track off the Bloc Party album.
Further digging and I found two MP3s from VHS or Beta, a band who opened for Duran Duran recently in North America. Now whether Amazon planned this cunningly or not, having downloaded the two free MP3s, I now have to own as many VHS or Beta CDs as I can find. Damn you Amazon.
The one complaint I do have about the site is it's American-centric offerings. That said, it is the US site, so it can't really be helped.
I just don't know how they can offer over 200 free MP3s without any recompence from the record labels. However they did it, my hat is definitely off you Amazon.
Link: Amazon's Free Downloads
