There are several types of free music album download sites and legal. The first historically are pure download sites. Then, from the 2000s, came the streaming sites, which incidentally offered downloads as an additional service.
Here is a mix of the best sites of each of the two types.
Spotify
Spotify is the world's largest streaming platform in terms of number of subscribers. At the end of 2018, the Swedish platform had 191 million active users per month worldwide, including 90 million paying subscribers.
The site has a portfolio of over 40 million musical titles. The platform is accessible via the Internet, mobile applications and Internet of Things compatible (Amazon Alexa and Google Home assistants). It offers the largest catalog of music album download.
A free offer is offered allowinglisten to streaming music against listening to advertisements without the possibility of downloading. The free tier has just been revamped and now includes 15 playlists that are updated daily (versus shuffling tracks previously).
Spotify official website: https://www.spotify.com
Deezer
La French platform de music album download at the end of 2018 had a little less than 20 million users with a portfolio of musical titles of more than 50 million musical titles.
While at the creation in 2007 Deezer was a completely free platform, the platform turns to a premium paid model. This positioning is due to a desire to stand out from the competition.
However, there remains a free offer which allows restricted listening over time, with advertising, without the possibility of downloading and on a restricted catalog of titles. Deezer can be accessed by mobile application and via Google Home or Amazon Alexa assistants.
While Spotify is the world's leading music streaming platform, in France, Spotify is the platform for music streaming the most popular with 50% market share at the start of 2018.
Deezer official website: https://www.deezer.com
noisetrade
noisetrade is a platform for independent artists that allows you to listen and download different types of music (sound effects, background music, musical albums etc). Possibility of voluntarily rewarding the artist.
This service is offered by providing personal data (name, email address, etc.) which will be shared with the artist. Who will be able to promote himself directly to his fans.
NoiseTrade official website: hazelnut
Google Play Music and YouTube Music
Launched several years ago, Google's platform has 40 million music tracks. The free version does not allow the music download, however, there are a multitude of extensions that offer to save audio streams listened to on YouTube.
Recently launched in France (early 2018) by Google, the free version of the YouTube Music offer has many limitations.
Youtube music is an attempt to relaunch under another brand Google Play Music which had not interested the market. Currently GooglePlay Music and Youtube Music coexist in the form of mobile applications.
With impressive catalogs, these services cannot be ignored. Their download policy is poorly defined: while the reuse of downloaded music is prohibited; multitudes of mobile applications and search engines specializing in mp3s will seek the music offered for download on Youtube.
Youtue Play Music official website
SoundCloud
Music platform which favors independent music rather than commercial. While the music album download service has been in existence since 2007, it was only in 2016 that SoundCloud offered a paid offer.
The service's portfolio includes no less than 125 million musical titles. The free offer is only available for a limited period of 30 days.
The service is available on Apple and Android mobile devices as well as on the Xbox platform.
SoundCloud official website: https://soundcloud.com
Apple Music
The service of music streaming Apple launched in recently (2015) is the 2nd largest streaming service in the world behind Spotify. It had just over 50 million subscribers at the end of 2018.
The streaming service is closely linked to the Apple ecosystem (iTunes) and on Android via a mobile application. The service does not offer a free offer but a particularly long trial period (3 months free).
Apple Music official website: https://www.apple.com/fr/music/
Jamendo
Free music download service artists who have decided to put their creations under the free license regime. These are therefore not or little known artists who use this service to promote themselves. But with an interesting portfolio of 600 thousand musical pieces.
Jamendo official website: https://www.jamendo.com
Free Music Archive
Song Download Service royalty free music (Creative Commons license). The archive represents 45 pieces of music in the portfolio. The site has just been recently (end of 2018) acquired by KitSplit, a photographic equipment rental site.
Free Music Archive official website: https://freemusicarchive.org