So–

I went and gave Songbird a quick little test run.  It’s an open source music player that is highly flexible and customizable, with lots of features.  I’ve always been on the lookout for a good alternative to iTunes, which is bloated and a pain to use, for the most part.

Unfortunately, I think Songbird’s much the same way.  It was really slow loading up, and then I hated the interface when playing music from my library.  Incidentally, it imported my iTunes library seemlessly, after about 20-30 minutes worth of sitting around and waiting.

So what else is there to be said about it?  Well, it does have a neat web-browser built into it.  This lets you go and stream music from Last FM or other places.  It also integrates with The Hype Machine, which is a very cool music blog aggregator.  Also, if you go to various music blogs, just as you would in a normal web browser, it will display the blog as well as display links for downloading the MP3s listed on the blog directly into your music library.  Pretty cool.

Unfortunately, I don’t see what the point is.  If I want a web browser, I open up Firefox.  I’ve never, ever used iTunes and thought, “You know what, I really want to do some web browsing in iTunes.”  Doesn’t happen.  And if I want to look for new music on MP3 blogs, I can already use the Hype Machine in Firefox or, better yet, use Google Reader with the blogs’ RSS feeds in order to link directly to the music, no middle man required.

And then, on top of all of that, Songbird’s not really faster than iTunes.  I’d say they’re about comparable.  Which is a shame.  What I really want in a media player is something that responds quickly, nay, instantly!, to my requests.  That’s why I’m a die-hard supporter of VLC.  I think it’s great.  Does what it says it will do, with a minimum amount of bloat.  If only all software were that way.