Let’s be honest — paying for music is passé. We have YouTube, Playlist, Grooveshark, friends with Library of Congress-sized music libraries … a whole host of sources can keep your parties bumpin’, satisfy your indie-music itch or give you unlimited background beats for late-night studying.

Unfortunately, there’s always that minor inconvenience: most free music is illegal in some way or another. No one wants to be on the wrong side of the law (right?), so the rub is finding the right music source that’s both free and legal.

Enter play.me. After exhaustive research (“Check out play.me and thumbplay.com, dude.” — Zach Fuhrer) and rigorous testing (creating a three-song playlist) scene is throwing its support behind play.me, the site that emerged as the leader in free, legal music.

The library is comprehensive – the indie-est corner of my self was challenged to find a song that play.me did not have. A $9.99/month subscription option exists, allowing users access to unlimited music, five MP3s a month (+20 bonus MP3s at sign up) and streaming to mobile devices. However, unlike thumbplay.com, which also has a $9.99 subscription rate, users can create playlists and listen to 10 hours of music per week and download one complimentary song per week, for FREE.

And the best part about it? You can listen with an entirely clear conscience.