There are plenty of music player apps for Android, but which ones are actually worth using? This article takes a look at some of the best options you should consider if you’re dissatisfied with your phone’s default music player.
1. Musicolet Music Player
With no ads or sneaky in-app purchases, and no requirement to connect to the internet, Musicolet is one of the most honest music player apps for Android out there.
It’s very good too, with the usual smattering of features including equalizers, sleep timer, embedded lyrics and full granular folder browsing. Its UI is nice and simple, and instead of dabbling with silly things like themes it gives you widgets and (*drum roll*) multiple listening queues!
Even paid music apps struggle to keep up with this excellent feature-set.
2. foobar2000
The vintage music player made its way to Android quite a few years ago, and has unapologetically maintained the simplicity and ease of use that made it such a hit on PCs. It supports a wide spectrum of audio formats, and as a nice perk it also streams music to your Android device from UPnP servers, ensuring that you’re always connected to your music on your home network.
Foobar2000 isn’t flashy with its Android 4.0 interface and folder-based design, and it lacks many of the more advanced features you’ll find in other apps here, but if you just want to listen to your collection (with gapless playback, no less), then it may well be all you need.
3. Phonograph
Phonograph is one of the best-looking music players for Android. It features a material design interface that gets out of your way, allowing you to focus on just playing music.
It supports the most common music formats and automatically downloads missing information from your media such as album art. A tag editor is also included if you want to manually edit song tags such as title, artist for single songs or whole albums.
Phonograph also has a few customisation options in the settings if you want to dig into that.
4. PowerAmp
PowerAmp has been the go-to music app for many Android users over the years. With over 50 million downloads, it’s certainly one you should consider if you’re looking for a great music player for your phone. It’s not free, but you can try it for two weeks before deciding whether to pay for the Pro version.
PowerAmp has a more complicated interface than most music players, but that’s because it packs a ton of features including gapless playback, crossfade, themes, lyrics support, widgets, and support for several types of playlists. You’ll also find a graphic equalizer, headset support, and several customization options in the settings.
5. Shuttle
Shuttle is another beautiful music player that offers a material design UI along with plenty of options. You get pretty much all the standard features that’s expected of any music player including playlist support, a sleep timer, gapless playback, and many theme options (including light and dark mode).
If you want Chromecast support, ID3 tag editing, folder browsing, and extra themes, you’ll need to purchase the Pro version for $1.50.
6. Black Player
Black Player is a solid choice for music lovers due to its impressive feature set, although most of it is only available on the premium version, Black Player Ex.
Still, you get an ad-free interface that’s easy on the eyes and is packed with useful features such as crossfading, embedded lyrics support, equalizer with bassboost and 3D surround virtualizer, scrobbling and more. It also supports all the standard music file formats such as mp3, wav and ogg. You can’t go wrong with this one.
7. Pulsar
Pulsar is one of the most highly rated music players out there. It offers a clean, minimal interface that’s easy to navigate and use. It doesn’t have many advanced features like Poweramp, but you get all the standard stuff such as playlists, homescreen widgets, lockscreen controls, gapless playback, crossfading and a sleep timer.
On top of that you get the option to reorder the way your library is arranged on the main screen. You can also change the playback speed (up to 3X faster), download missing album art automatically and ignore certain folders from your library.
8. Retro Music
Retro Music sports a unique interface that combines design elements from iOS and material design which makes it one of the best looking music players out there. You can customize the interface with different color themes and even change certain aspects of how the app looks such as the Now Playing screen which can be styled in ten different ways.
Your library is sorted into songs, albums, artists, and playlists. Browsing through folders is also available. Furthermore, the app offers all the regular features you might expect like widgets, lockscreen controls, tag editing, Last.fm integration, gapless playback and more. It’s definitely one you should check out.
9. Google Play Music
In addition to being a music streaming service, Google Play Music offers a free app that can play local songs on your device, and you don’t need to sign up for anything just to use it.
It offers even less customization options than the other options on this list (you can’t even change the theme), but it gets all the basics right and integrates well with your Android devices well by providing convenient widgets for your homescreen and a cool lockscreen album art which you can disable if you prefer to see something else on your lockscreen.
You can also upload up to 50,000 of your own songs to Play Music’s cloud platform and get to stream or download them on your mobile device, computer, or Android TV.
10. Pi Music Player
Pi Music Player is another highly rated music player for Android with a bunch of good reasons to choose it. It offers a stylish user interface mixed with folder support, playlists, sleep timer, and it even provides support for audiobooks and podcasts.
You also get a ringtone cutter that lets you cut any mp3 file and set it as your default ringtone. The free version of Pi Music Player is supported with ads, but you can make an in-app purchase to get rid of the ads forever.
