I am bloody sick and tired of iTunes. iTunes has its features, yes, but it also has its serious downsides, too. Constant, persistent, annoying downsides. Duplicates, freezing, even when it tries to update itself, it screws up. Its flippin’ HUGE, a memory hog, etc. Doesn’t even have skins. Which to be fair, I didn’t care about because it wasn’t hard to look at to begin with.

So I went browsing on Lifehacker, for reviews on media players, side-by-side comparisions, etc. Found an article that showed off Foobar2000, Amarok, iTunes, Media Monkey, and Winamp.

While it overall looks like Foobar is the most customizable, I don’t want to spend that much time installing plugins and crap. I do that for LovetheMusic. When I play with other stuff on the computer, it needs to be vacation-like, ie, I don’t have to fix anything.

So after some poking around, I decided on Winamp. Probably the runner-up popularity-wise compared to iTunes, it has to have something that makes it better or just as good as iTunes, right?

Well, let’s see why I like iTunes:

• By default, because Windows Media hurts my eyes.

• Because I can look at my LovetheMusic podcast set-up like a proud mama, quite easily from iTunes.

• I like the playlists, and burning of them.

• Wow, this is pathetic. I really can’t think of why I like it. Really, I don’t like it, I just don’t like it less than WMP.

• I’ll ask Damon.

me: why do we like itunes

 damon: I like being able to edit the start and stop times of tracks

 me: thats because you’re a nerd

i have never used that feature

 damon: This is how I get my mix tapes so succulent.

•  It has pretty good search…I guess.

See, this is what happened to me last night when I was trying to figure out what media player to try out and use. I don’t even like iTunes. I suspect I’d appreciate it more if I had an iPod, which I don’t. But according to Brooklyn Vegan, theres a plugin for Winamp that simulates what iTunes does for mp3 players. Sweet, right?

Onward Winamp. (Click on images for larger view.)

I went Winamp because there’s a community of people who use this player and love it, I figure for good reason, and its very customizable. The customizable bit actually put me off at first, because I was sick of messing around with stuff to make it better. That was why I was sick of iTunes.

So far, I really like it. I like how theres a box that pops up in the bottom right corner when the song changes, so I know whats going on and whats playing, so I don’t have to maximize iTunes to see whats coming up next. The look and feel of it is sleek, and thats partially due to the kickass skin I’m rocking, called clearONE. It’s highly customizable, you change all the colors and fonts, and the possible animations of Winamp (fade, scroll, opacity, etc).

Check it out with 90 percent opacity:

Cool, eh?

I’m going to spin this for a while, and see how it goes. The only thing I don’t like about Winamp so far is the Menu in the Media Library. If you look to the left, you have a folder that says Local Media, then Audio, Video, etc. Since I don’t watch Youtube Vids or anything like that, I only use the Audio Folder. But it seems when you have that open, you have the artists in a scrollable window at the top, with a window next to it for Albums, then the tracklisting below it. I’d never use the list of Albums or Artists, since I listen to music track-by-track, as I am in the mood. I can’t get rid of it, either, or I haven’t figured out how to yet. But, thats not a good enough reason to throw the towel on Winamps face, so I’m sticking with it for a while.

P.S. I’m a Scrobbler, and there’s a plugin available for Winamp to scrobble your stuff.

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