Mediafire.com is a popular media (mostly audio) sharing website that allows uploads of large files. Countless people have uploaded a plethora of songs, albums, and even tv show episodes on this site. And it's all legitimately free. No bullshit signups, and at the very most an occasional annoying popup ad. But you can easily block those with Adblock if not your browser's default popup blocker.
And Google can help you find files on this site. First, select an album. If the album and band name are the same, look up the album and get its date of release. Now search Google for the following:
ALBUMINFO site:mediafire.com
Replace ALBUMINFO with your album information obviously. If the album title is long and you're as lazy as I am, you can just type some key words or the first few words of it. Throwing the band name in there helps a lot. If the album is self-titled, type the band name and the album's release date. Here are three examples based on Sublime's 1996 self-titled album, "This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About" by Modest Mouse, and "Meddle" by Pink Floyd.
sublime 1996 site:mediafire.com
modest mouse long drive site:mediafire.com
meddle site:mediafire.com
Album downloads are either in .ZIP or .RAR extensions. These file types are basically a bunch of files compressed and put into one single file to make for easier transfer/storage of multiple files. Windows operating systems by default can open/make .ZIP files, but .RAR files require a separate program. .RAR files are pretty much just a bit faster with packing/unpacking and are a few kilobytes smaller than .ZIP files so lots of people use them. Unpack/create .RAR files with WinRAR. Download a 32-bit or 64-bit. If you dunno which is for you, fuck it just try both of 'em. When you open a .RAR file with WinRAR, just hit the "Extract To" button and select the folder you want to put the files in as you would with a .ZIP.
There are downloads of various bitrates available. A bitrate is the amount of data in a song that is read per second. The higher the bitrate, the more detail you will be able to hear, if I'm not mistaken mostly on the treble and bass ends. The difference between bitrates is noticeable but honestly not very large. Millions of people settle with the low-end 128kbps that iTunes sell their files in. And you won't hear much of a difference on cheap headphones. Also the higher the bitrate, the bigger the file. 128kbps albums are roughly around 1mb per minute of music. So know that along with how long an album is when choosing your download, if you care about bitrates at all. I prefer albums in v0, a bitrate that constantly changes based on the amount of detail in a song from 128kbps in quiet or silent moments to around 256kbps in loud complex parts. It's like the middleground from 128kbps to 320kbps.
Which brings me up to FLAC. Songs in FLAC have been ripped directly from the CD and have not been compressed as MP3 files are. Therefor, they're fucking huge, like 500mb per album. Many see FLAC as pointless for casual listening and MP3 320kbps as nearly if not exactly identical in quality. FLAC should be used if you're sampling or remixing the song, as it would be in its most pristine and uncompressed condition; you don't want to remix a compressed song into an MP3, compressing it even more. I've come to the conclusion that you can't hear the difference between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC unless you have some top-of-the-line equipment (like at the very least, $700 headphones and an amp), which I do not. So I avoid FLAC like the plague.
Congratulations, you now understand how to get free music from Google. Now go out there and pirate some shit. I'll help you start.
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