Clementine Media Player

Clementine is a cross-platform, open-source media player based on the much-beloved Amarok 1.4 media player.

On the surface it boasts many  impressive features:

• Plays local and internet files (MP3, AAC, OGG Vorbis, FLAC)
• Stream from online radio stations (Last.fm, SomaFM, Magnatune, Jamendo and Icecast).
• Excellent playlist support, including import and export in popular formats.
• Edit tags and download missing album artwork.
• Desktop notifications, including the sound menu integration in Ubuntu
• Queue manager
• iPod/iPhone/MTP support
• Artist info, pics, biographies, and lyrics built-in

In terms of performance, this program is fairly remarkable. It loads quickly, doesn’t bog down the system, and isn’t built on Mono (not pointing fingers… Banshee). It terms of functionality, it not only does what it claims, but it does it almost flawlessly.

Where Clementine falls down for me is in usability and design. There’s something I have to get off my chest: I know the name of the program is Clementine. You don’t have to put a giant orange in the library window, and the texture for the sidebar doesn’t need to be bunches of Clementines. Perhaps that would work on a bottle of Tropicana, but it does not make for a pleasant design in software.That being said, I absolutely love the orange bars that show when music is playing. It’s a nice touch that a lot of the open-source players lack.

Unlike other music players, you don’t just play a song straight from your library. It automatically throws everything in a queue, and makes it feel like it’s almost impossible to escape some kind of playlist mode. That probably works for some people- it just doesn’t for me. There’s too much manipulation; I just want to hear a song.

The lyric lookup and artist bios/pictures are a nice addition, and for people with a serious interest in music, it really makes a compelling difference. The process is a little clunky and the UI is slightly cluttered, but I’m not going to knock it.

One last thing that I want to add is that it’s being very actively updated. The developers are staying on top of bugs and adding new features, and I really respect when people are fired up about their project.

Bottom line: Clementine needs some work with the UI and usability, but it’s feature-rich, light-weight, and is ultimately a great option for people looking for a new music player.

Downloads

Clementine is available for nearly all platforms, and has packages for Fedora, Ubuntu, Mac OS X, and Windows (all in 32 and 64 bit varieties)

sudo apt-get install clementine