This week, UK band Coldplay offered a free download of a track from their upcoming album. The song is called Volet Hill and was available from Tuesday this week, for one week only.

After the week’s free download has expired, the single will be released in stores. Before then, you can download the song here:

Coldplay’s new album, Viva La Vida, is available in June.

Following on from Coldplay’s free MP3 download; Metallica is considering making some music available as well, despite their well publicised troubles with former illegal download site Napster.

It seems that the opinion of bands on the whole music download phenomenon is changing from one of distrust, to one of embrace. They’re realising that digital music is a natural progression of the marketplace.

Radiohead famously offered their album as a ‘free’ download, where fans were invited to contribute what they wished for the album. While many did offer to pay for the download, a great many of Internet users downloaded the album without paying.

We can expect more musicians to follow suite and offer their work for free download via the Internet in the near future. It is fast becoming a medium that bands have to embrace, rather than fight against.