Alternative to Windows Media Player

[THEV1LL4N]

So I bought a new PC and installed Windows 11 on it. The issue I'm having with WMP 12 (Legacy) is that there are a large number of MP3s which appear blank because it does not correctly display the metadata/tags even though they are visible in Windows Explorer and were working on WMP 12 on my old PC.

I'm now considering alternatives - what would you recommend? I don't like the new Media Player as it does not show my library as a list with the info as I want it (as in the screenshot)

 

[Jokerman]

I heard Microsoft largely shut down its online metadata services about a month or so ago. I stopped using WMP long time ago. I use the VLC Media player for everything, but I heard MusicBee is one of the best for music, and it's a free download.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

I’ve heard the same. Most of my metadata is intact, but I’ve hit a snag with about 4,000 songs that are showing up completely blank. I’ve manually curated this library over the years, so it’s strange that only this specific batch is affected.

My entire library is sourced from the parent folder D:\Music. Interestingly, if I manually drag and drop one of the 'blank' albums into the player, the metadata appears perfectly. This makes me wonder if Windows Media Player is crashing or timing out before it can finish indexing the full collection. I’ve tried rescanning several times, but the result is always the same.

Not sure how Microsoft switching the online metadata feature off should affect me, if I've manually written the metadata tags.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

So out of Audacious, MusicBee, MediaMonkey, VLC Media Player, WinAmp and a couple of others I considered, I went with MusicBee.

I really disliked the default aesthetic which reminded me of iTunes. I've spent some time customising it more to my taste - it's not perfect, but I'm much more happier with it after some customisation.

I like simplicity/minimalism to have a clean/sleek look and a dark theme is better on the eyes. Would be good if I could give the font a pop of colour in the top (i.e. Title, Time, Album Artist etc) and also at the bottom right (650 files, 5.1 GB etc) so it's more legible without having to get closer to the screen (I'm using a 24 inch monitor).