The Book of Lies

In the following video Brad Meltzer says, "I write in complete silence. I never want to hear music, I don't want to hear anything while I'm writing, but there's no question that there's always a soundtrack that plays in your head while you write it."

It was the soundtrack in his head that inspired him to put together a companion soundtrack for his novel, The Book of Lies. He talks in the video about the process they went through in selecting the songs (ranging from REM to Wagner) and the time spent to find just the right music to get the reader "as close as I can give you to what I'm feeling as I'm writing it."

On his website, Meltzer has a score for the soundtrack, letting the reader know which part of which chapter each piece of music is supposed to fit. On the main soundtrack page you can find links to the complete playlist, as well as links to free downloads of some of the music.


Brad Meltzer - The Book of Lies: Companion Soundtrack


Music: REM, Richard Wagner
Book: The Book of Lies, Brad Meltzer

Wednesday Freebie

A reader in Washington D.C. sent me the link to today's musician! Ron Kemp has put out one CD, Better Late Than Never, and is hoping to make a second CD soon. He offers free downloads of his music on his home page. Just scroll down to the TuneWidget to find them. You can also find him on YouTube at RonKempMusic2009 and on ReverbNation at The Ron Kemp Project.




Crocabye Way

Wednesday Freebie

If you like Christine Feehan's book trailer for Turbulent Sea, you might want to hear more music from Corvo,  the romantic horror rock group that composed and performed the song (also called Turbulent Sea) that was used in the trailer. They offer free downloads of their music at their website.



Music: Turbulent Sea, Corvo
Books: Turbulent Sea, Christine Feehan

Wednesday Freebie

According to their About page, The Free Music Archive  was inspired by the Creative Commons and open source software movement. "Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet."

Directed by freeform radio station WFMU the site offers free legal music downloads, information about the contributing artists, and links to the artists' websites.

It's a great site, and tailor made for those of you who like to explore!

Wednesday Freebie

MTV has a Free Music Downloads page. It hasn't been updated in some time - the posting dates are all from October, 2009 - but there are still some free downloads there. Check it out now, before they decide to take the page down!

UPDATE: And MTV makes a liar of me. Between last night, and this morning when this post was scheduled to be published, they changed that page. There is now only one download there, dated yesterday.

Wednesday Freebie

John Anealio has a fantastic blog, Sci Fi Songs, where he shares the music he has created for and about science fiction and fantasy. If you like your music quirky with a side of imagination, hurry over to check out his free downloads. (My personal favorite is Unicorn Pegasus Kitten.)

Wednesday Freebie

Artist Direct is a great site - especially if you like free music. Their Free Downloads section has pages and pages of music to explore. You can browse according to artist or genre. Be warned, though, the ringtones links will send you to another site that Web of Trust rates poorly.

Wednesday Freebie

What's summer without a rousing round of "Great Green Gobs of Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts"? Oh, come on. Don't pretend you didn't enjoy that when you were a kid! Would you seriously deny that innocent joy to your children?

You would?

Oh.

Well, in that case, I'm sure you'll find other great kid's songs to download from Free Kids Music. With a large selection of kid's songs, both contemporary and traditional, you'll fill up several CDs. And I won't tell the kids you didn't download the gross (fun) songs. Cross my heart.

Wednesday Freebie

If you're a fan of Sherrilyn Kenyon, you'll already be familiar with her latest novel, Infinity: Chronicles of Nick. (Which, incidentally, has made it to my summer reading pile.) As part of her marketing campaign, the background music to the book's two trailers is available for download as a free WAV file.

The song, Kill Like This, is by Adam Ezra Group.

Adam Ezra Group - Half a Hero & Kill Like This

Wednesday Freebie

One of the advantages of enjoying classical music is that I've always found it easy to find inexpensive or free classical music collections at the store and online. Granted, if you are more than a casual classical music consumer (wow - that worked out alliteratively) you'll want to be aware of who is performing what, which is why Classic Cat is a good place to look into.

You can search according to composer, instrument, performer, or genre, or just jump straight to the 150 most popular downloads. (The music available there is not hosted at Classic Cat; the links lead to the individual performers' websites.) Since all the music is free, you can afford to listen to several performances before choosing your favorite. Or just keep them all and make a super cool CD of all the variations you can find of Pachelbel's Canon.

What? No, I have never heard the version with the whales. Really.

Wednesday Freebie

Sign up with eMusic and they'll let you download (varying amounts) of songs for free. (It changes from offer to offer.) Even if you don't sign up with them, though, you can download free music through their free daily download. You'll find everything from punk to classical music, one song a day, available for one day only.

Wednesday Freebie

I have just fallen in love with HearYa as a source of great free indie music downloads. I've also found a lot of groups to follow. You can also follow HearYa on Twitter (and don't forget to follow us, too!)

Wednesday Freebie

Another free Mp3 Of The Day site can be found at Spinner. Don't forget to check out the older posts (several pages of them) to find more songs that are still available.

Me + Free = Meant 2 B

Wednesday Freebie

The band Fisher offers several free mp3s for download at their website. You might be familiar with their music through ads (like this Toyota ad from 2005),  if you're not familiar with them already just because of their great music. Why, yes, I am a fan. Why do you ask? Go. Buy. Support great music!

Wednesday Freebie

There's another large group of free legal mp3 downloads at Last.fm. You can browse according to genre, but I don't see any way to sort through these free songs beyond that.

Wednesday Freebie

This will probably seem pretty obvious, but if you're looking for free mp3 downloads, you'll want to check out Amazon's free music. There are hundreds of free songs there, some of them from artists you've never heard of, some of them from names you'll be excited to see. If you haven't been there already, it's worth checking out.

Wednesday Freebie

If you're looking for free legal mp3 downloads you might be interested in VolumeVote. Every day they offer one free song download, a different song each day. You can listen to the song before you download it if you want to make sure you like it.