When people hear “Free Music” they think Napster, Kaaza or any number of illegal download sites. But a little known secret is that there is plenty of legal free music out there, you just need to know where to look.

For this week’s Friday Free Post, I’m going to show you one of the better places to look for it: The Relevant Podcast.

Produced by Relevant Magazine, the Relevant Podcast is one of my absolute favorite podcasts. They have great interviews, features, and often music performances. All of the music performances are archived and available for download on their website.

The Relevant Podcast Music Performances

What It Is: Free music from the Relevant Podcast. They’ve got a lot of great bands and songs on there. Most of the music is pretty indy/non-mainstream, so if you’re into that, it’s awesome. Lots of great Christian bands there too (like Charlie Hall, Tenth Avenue North, etc).

Where You Can Get It: You can get it at the Relevant podcast page, or just go to http://www.relevantmagazine.com/media/relevant-podcast/music-download to browse the songs.

What I Use It For: This is a great way to discover new music and to add some cool live performances that don’t quite have the overproduced feel of a studio.

Awesomeness Scale: 6 out of 10. It’s free music online. That’s pretty awesome in and of itself, but the fact that it’s GOOD music takes it up another notch. Some people may not appreciate the more indy/hipster vibe of some of the music, so it looses a few points, but it’s definitely worth checking out, even if you only find a few bands you like.

Fun story about the effectiveness of free as a marketing tool: I was not a Relevant magazine subscriber when I first started listening to the podcast. After listening for a couple of months, and after using Relevant.FM (their free music streaming service), I subscribed.

So the moral of the story is, give stuff away for free and they’ll be much more likely to purchase the stuff you’re selling!

Anyhow, good job Relevant.