I think any modern student of Chinese should be using Baidu’s MP3 search. With it, it’s possible to find a huge variety of MP3s on the internet, and it’s totally free! (Yes, the world’s loss regarding intellectual property rights in China can be your gain!) I can imagine, though, that for a beginning student of Chinese, an all-Chinese interface can be daunting. It is my aim to make it more accessible to the beginner.
Note: to use Baidu, your computer must support Chinese fonts. Baidu uses GB2312 encoding, which should be automatically detected by your browser, but the Chinese characters will only be readable if your computer supports them.
OK, let’s suppose you’re a total beginner. You’ve heard of this hot boy band called F4, and you figure it’s as good a place as any (plus you don’t have to actually use any Chinese to search for it!).
Go to Baidu.com.
Click on MP3 (or you could have gone to mp3.baidu.com directly).
Enter your search term in the box (in this case it’s “F4” without the quotes).
Choose your format. I only want MP3s, so I select the “MP3” radio button. (The choices, left to right, are: 歌词 (lyrics), 全部音乐 (all music files), mp3, rm (RealPlayer format), wma (Windows Media Player format), flash, 其它 (others), 铃声 (cell phone ringtones).)
Click on the button next to the search box, “百度搜索” (Baidu search). (For the future, when you do searches from the search results page, make sure you click on the left button. The right button will be “歌词搜索” (lyrics search).)
You will see a table of your search results. Below you will find a guide to interpreting this table:
- 歌曲名: Song Title (this name is linked to the MP3s you download)
- 试听: Listen First (uses Windows Media Player in a popup window)
- 歌词: Lyrics (very useful, especially for pop music, although not 100% reliable)
- 铃声: Cell Phone Ringtone
- 大小: Filesize (in megabytes)
- 格式: Format (MP3, WMA, etc.)
- 下载速度: Download Speed (especially if you’re outside of China, this may be important)
Right click on a title(choose from the 歌曲名/Song Title column) and “Save as“. There’s a good chance that you’ll want to change the filename, as they are often completely random or unhelpful.Update: You now have to first left-click on the song title. A pop-up window will appear containing the URL to the MP3. Right-click on that to save.
That’s it! Also try out the lyrics search. You can click on 歌词 (lyrics) for any search result that has them. You can also search for lyrics directly, from the search results page. Click on the right button, “歌词搜索” (lyrics search).)
Note that the lyrics are not always 100% accurate. Most are submitted by users.
Can’t wait to try that one.
August 8th, 2005 at 8:41 amother sites for searching MP3: http://www.sogua.com/ http://music.yisou.com/ http://mp3.zhongsou.com/
August 8th, 2005 at 9:47 amListening to F4 will also make you a total beginner in chinese music, F4? already fed up with them…
August 8th, 2005 at 11:46 amDid you buy the Baidu stock?
August 8th, 2005 at 5:21 pmAnya,
F4 was popular back in 2001, I believe. It’s just an example.
August 8th, 2005 at 5:38 pmTim H,
Nope.
August 8th, 2005 at 5:38 pmNow we’re at it, http://www.verycd.com/ offers lots of interesting links -music, movie, software, etc-, to download with eMule (Chinese version: http://www.emule.org.cn/)
August 9th, 2005 at 7:16 pmWould you like to recommend some Mandarin Pop groups?
How about the names of some that were popular in 2003? I couldn’t stand it at the time, but now I wish I’d bought a CD to play for people in the US, so they know what kind of music was blaring from the shops. I already have Super Star by S.H.E., that was too easy to find! It turned my stomach hearing it played over and over, but now it makes me nostalgic.
August 11th, 2005 at 9:54 ammp3 baidu is very good.i like to use it because it’s very fast.
October 11th, 2005 at 7:41 pmWhat happened to mp3.baidu.com? It seems to me that a search doesn’t yield any results…
November 3rd, 2005 at 4:43 pmYah how come it doesn’t work?? For some reason it only works for Chinese names… But then it used to work with English too…
Anyone know the answer??
November 20th, 2005 at 2:14 pmChris and Jo,
Baidu has recently made some changes to its MP3 search in an apparent move to protect itself from being sued by the Western music industry. Looks like Baidu is only really useful for searching for Chinese songs now.
November 20th, 2005 at 3:50 pmBaidu is very wonderful . It save my money and time .
January 1st, 2006 at 9:18 pmMaybe baidu.com/mp3 used to be better, but I still find it useful for finding American songs, either major or minor label. I never noticed any change, actually, but I’m not a power user.
January 2nd, 2006 at 10:13 pmWorks great, even better if you understand a few characters and know how to write in Chinese!
January 19th, 2006 at 3:46 amHow does understanding a few characters and knowing how to write in Chinese help? I thought you just entered text in the box and clicked enter. I have friends using it who don’t know the first thing about Chinese.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:16 pmI’m Chinese.I didn’t know so many foreigners were using BAIDU.But I’d like to invite some singers popular in China now.I think the most popular one is周杰伦 whose english name is “JAY” you can saerch with it and may you find some surprise.
February 7th, 2006 at 12:04 amsome popular songs: 夜曲,一路向北,我的地盘,不得不爱,神话,热带雨林,欧若拉,寓言,丝路,笔记,honey,不想长大,lydia,千年之恋,我们的爱,我知道你很难过,六月的雨,杀破狼,一直很安静^^^^^ and i’m glad to make friends with you nofinis@sina.com
February 7th, 2006 at 12:24 amWow…i didn’t realize there were so many foreigner listening to chinese songs…well probably most of you are asian origin or just chinese around the world..hehe…i just recently start listening to chinese music again and i got admit …it’s way much better than previous years before and from my point of view…it’s almost up there with K-pop and more american type of songs…very good… my fav. artist are: Kelly Chan, Nicholas Tse, Daniel chan, Jay Chow, Cecilia Cheung, Sammi Cheung,gigi, SHE, and a lot of others i can’t think of right now..
February 25th, 2006 at 1:56 amguys can u tell me where i could find the pinyin and english translation lyrics to Shino Lin - Xin Dong song? i trie dto find it everywhere but couldnt find it..please sumone help?
April 24th, 2006 at 1:51 pmI like Leehom. It’s kinda hip-hop, but he calls his music “chinked out.” I think L.J’s artist picks are mostly Cantonese, though. I’m just going to say this now: I’m no expert.
April 26th, 2006 at 1:20 pmguys……..a new chinese mp3 website http://www.yiso.com
October 12th, 2006 at 12:32 pmDoes anyone know of a mp3 player that can handle both English and Chinese? I’ve downloaded the Chinese skins from Winamp, but it doesn’t change how the songs are actually listed.
Any suggestions?
October 26th, 2006 at 6:04 pmBaidu is good in terms of doing search for songs, especially good for Chinese songs.
H3ctor: I’m not sure you can even find any site that does that kind of translation for you. good luck with it :) but if you know a mate that reads chinese, I bet s/he can do it for you. Buy them a beer :)
Kate545: It has nothing to do with the skins. It’s the encoding that used by the software that makes it impossible to display chinese until you change the regional settings in the Control Panel.
November 7th, 2006 at 2:24 pmI think baidu.com is very good for us .I am chinese but now I living
in America but I still use it to search popular songs.
January 6th, 2007 at 11:26 amYou say you found Superstar by S.H.E.? Where did you find it? Can you download it for free???
January 6th, 2007 at 12:09 pmscroll upwards and read the post girl…
John’s done the hard work going through the whole process =_______=”
January 14th, 2007 at 7:03 pmthanx soo much. i’m like south asian and don’t know chinese at all and this has like totally helped me! ur the best! now i can download all my songs.
February 2nd, 2007 at 6:12 amFor Chinese music http://www.baidu.com is very fast. For English Music http://www.mp3-find.com/ is good and for Indian Music http://www.pakimp3.org is okay.
February 28th, 2007 at 11:45 amIs baidu.com absolutely safe?
March 17th, 2007 at 4:29 amhey! i always go there but i just click on newsongs top 100/500 to listen to songs. There are more than f4 songs.i hate f4
March 26th, 2007 at 12:00 pmyes it’s absolutely safe and fast i’m chinese l always use it it’s update everyday so you can search too many america songs which you like of course it have too many chinese songs in china,a singer who named jolin is popular now
April 10th, 2007 at 4:19 amIt won’t give me the option to “save as” =( What do i do???
June 19th, 2007 at 12:38 amThank you very much for an illustration of why Baidu continues to beat Google China among the under 25s.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:44 amBaidu have changed it, you have to left click on the link that comes on the page directly after you’ve entered the search terms, then a new window comes up with a url where the track is. You right click and select save as on this link. Check that when you choose the filename that the file is saved as type .mp3 or .wma, not .html!
July 15th, 2007 at 2:15 amgoogle china never beats baidu
July 18th, 2007 at 10:38 amBaidu, come to know Chinese.
August 5th, 2007 at 10:33 pmi cant use baidu anymore?? i have the chinese fonts on my computer but i cant find the songs that i have looked for before and i cant find any other songs.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:22 amF4 are not popular at all now in china !!
F4现在在中国一点也不流行
August 16th, 2007 at 1:43 pmhey does anyone know if Baidu MP3 works for Apple’s Macs? Because I have one and I would really like to use it to download songs on to my iPod…if possible.
September 3rd, 2007 at 1:20 amHi,
please let me know how to download mp3 from baidu. after I found the link of the music, I click save link as , but it doesn;t work. Then, I tried to open the link in the new window and it bring me to new another window.
Thanks for the help
September 20th, 2007 at 5:53 pmbaidu is good enough…but is there any website that is english,but have chinese songs???i don’t know how to read or write in chinese…i just know very very simple chinese only…
October 14th, 2007 at 9:41 pmbaidu is very good. I love it very much i’m in china my classmate also use baidu.
My english is not good.-_-||
October 15th, 2007 at 5:49 pmI use this http://www.ligga.net It is very popular now for searching direct download link for all kind of media..
October 28th, 2007 at 5:21 amHello, I don’t why http://www.baidu.com doesn’t work now. I am using it in America. I tried to repair it at school but I failed last week. Probably this college just has one Chinese student, so they close Chinese website.
November 1st, 2007 at 10:59 amThank you very much for the useful notes especially for a Chinese like me but don’t know how to read Mandarin, this notes really helpful and I’m so much happy to get the songs I wanted so much.
November 1st, 2007 at 5:14 pmAnyone know where can I get the really good old stuff? Like pre and post Mao, 1930’s-1960’s?
November 4th, 2007 at 9:24 am[...] Monday, December 18th, 2006 in FAQ, Tech Support by chinkerfly Tags: Internet Baidu mp3 search explained! [...]
November 10th, 2007 at 11:43 pmAnother site for searching Mp3:http://www.gougou.com/ but for better speed,you’d better download 迅雷5.
November 11th, 2007 at 12:25 amListening chinese songs is one of the best ways to relax myself. with the modern technology and software, we now can listen any good songs whenever we are.
November 17th, 2007 at 8:35 amHeya…I followed your tutorial….and well when I want to put in another artists name like Joey yung or 容祖兒….it doesn’t appear the same, and well I’m chinese, but I cant READ chinese since I was born in canada so all this stuff is really hard for me….and so I was just wondering why it doesn’t work for 容祖兒??? Could you reply me back?
November 28th, 2007 at 9:03 amThanks for the info on baidu. I finally worked it out GO ME.
i enjoy listening to mandarin songs much more than cantonese songs, There are few good canto singers on the scene now. I mean, the guys and girls from the decades before were pretty damn good. Now its all just based on LOOKS and they CAN’T sing. it makes my stomach churn with disgust.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:27 amdoes anyone knows what happened to mp3.baidu.com? all the songs seem to have disappeared! when i try searching for songs, nothing appear in the search result…=(
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:43 amya! I’m agree with liang! Why doesn’t it work to download songs anymore om baidu?? :S I haven’t got any site were I can download chinese songs now!:S:S Help meee!! :0 were can I download chinese songs now?? :S:S:S:S Heeeeelp!
December 4th, 2007 at 3:43 amsomething’s strange. now when i go to baidu, and search for a song, nothing comes out!!! that goes for every song!!! how am i to download songs now??? somebody fix this please!!!
December 5th, 2007 at 3:11 pmyeah…what happen to baidu? it seem they have remove all mp3 from the server. someone tell us plz.
December 6th, 2007 at 4:20 pmahh. same with me D: i’m so sad. i recall there used to be another chinese music search engine site, but i don’t remember what it was since i always used baidu.
December 9th, 2007 at 2:20 amooh i remember now. http://mp3.zhongsou.com it still works! not as good as baidu, but there are mp3s.
December 9th, 2007 at 2:24 ammaybe baidu is being sued again… thats why we cant search anything.
December 9th, 2007 at 2:52 pmGuys,
mp3.baidu.com still works for me. I just downloaded an Elva song from it.
What kinds of problems are you having that makes you say it doesn’t work anymore? It could be that Baidu has blocked IP addresses from outside of China from downloading.
December 10th, 2007 at 8:17 amthats true John..Baidu has blocked IP add outside china.now i can download mp3 from baidu again…thx…
December 12th, 2007 at 8:29 ambut i still cant download songs from it. i live in singapore by the way. why did they suddenly block IP addresses outside china???
December 12th, 2007 at 3:48 pmhttp://shanghaiist.com/2007/12/07/baidus_mp3_sear.php baidu mp3 search banned in the us
If you think only Chinese people use Baidu, you’re dead wrong. Recently, a friend of ours in the US complained that he was unable to find any more music through Baidu’s MP3 search service. Not a surprise really, since that treasure trove of pirated music that is now getting sued for big bucks in a Beijing court by some of the biggest names in music including Universal, EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and their local subsidiaries, Cinepoly, Go East and Gold Label for the infringement of the copyright of “hundreds of songs”. All eyes are on this court case now as this is one that may force Baidu to shut down its MP3 search service.
In an earlier case, a Chinese court has apparently ruled that MP3 searches are illegal and ChinaMP3.com was fined RMB310,000 yuan in four cases involving 70 songs.Netease, one of the top three web portals in China, has also shut down its MP3 search over copyright infringement concerns.
A quick check with friends in Germany also found that Baidu’s MP3 search is also no longer available there. Like in the US, users are now directed to Baidu’s video search instead. Interestingly, AltaVista.com, one of our favourite search engines in the early days of the Internet (oh how long ago is that now), has found a new niche in MP3 search, it seems. A search for Jay Chou (周杰伦) yielded 26 search results, “Michael Jackson” yielded 12,936 results while “Madonna” yielded 17,936 results.
Despite all the legal hiccups, the god of fortune seems to be smiling on Baidu. It has just broken into the NASDAQ Top 100, a big deal apparently because Baidu is the first Chinese stock to do so.
I’m from Europe This really s*cks!!!
December 16th, 2007 at 3:55 amhi guys! looks like my life has gone dull. Baidu was the excellent site, i could downlaod any thing i wanted , now its gone. If any body have any links to download chinese mp3 , please inform all Baidu lovers.
December 26th, 2007 at 8:53 pmGuys! i have been using baidu since last 5 years, travelled all over the world, now settled back in Pakistan. I was very disappointed to see baidu going dead. Any other site you guys know about please keep us posted. I love chinese pop music and found no other alternate other then to fly back to china and buys MP3 cds from there, cause here no place to buy chinese music. Help me out please …
December 27th, 2007 at 7:17 pmyahoooooooooooooooo….. i can use Baidu now…
December 30th, 2007 at 4:47 amyipee yipeee yeye !!! Baidu is great……
December 30th, 2007 at 4:48 amwhy all of u can use but not me???
December 31st, 2007 at 10:30 amerm… john??? guys??? pls reply my question??? why did they block IP addresses outside China??? how do i fix this???
February 8th, 2008 at 3:10 pmwadever,
I’m in China. I can’t see what’s blocked where, and I have no idea what Baidu is doing. If Baidu wants to block IPs from outside of China, there’s nothing you can do (except maybe move to China).
February 8th, 2008 at 6:53 pmI still don’t get it :S When ever I right click it, it doesn’t say ; Save Link As ..
March 26th, 2008 at 5:34 amI must thks my friend who introduce this website to me. I’ve never been so happy listening to music I like Baidu bcos it’s extremely friendly n efficient!
Cheers,
su
April 30th, 2008 at 8:45 amI still don’t get it… is there anyone can help me to download the song : mimi 秘密 singer : li rui en 黎瑞恩
thanks, Josephine fortunebear@hotmail.com
July 27th, 2008 at 6:06 pm