I’ve been keeping an eye on Songbird for a while but was always a bit intimidated to try it out. A fractional (v 0.5) developer release with nightly builds? Come on, that’s a bit scary for the average bear. I finally installed it this weekend and can honestly say I have arrived at the pearly gates of music heaven.  

Developed by a group calling themselves ‘Pioneers of the Inevitable’ (love it), Songbird is a free open source media player and web browser rolled into one.  It’s like the power of iTunes and Firefox combined.  Not only can you manage and play your own music, now you can play the web too.  

For example, any media files stored on a website will show up as a playable file in the Songbird application that you can download or save to your library.  Even better, it has a built-in RSS subscription and MP3 file download so now you can subscribe to your favorite MP3 blogs as playlists!  Plus, it’s already integrated with HypeMachine, eMusic and InSound.  To get a better sense of all the features, watch their online demo here.

The potential of the application is mind boggling.  Just today I added the mashTape add-on that shows tour dates, photos, lyrics and videos of the artist currently playing and I thought my head was going to explode.  Now if they would only integrate with Sonos…..

Go get it now!