Andrew Nagy's Journal: What Can I use Instead of iTunes?

I've been using iTunes for a few years now. While most of my friends don't bother with things like ratings and such I find those features extremely useful. I rate most of my music and I create dynamic playlists based off of things like play count and last played date and rating to create a relatively fresh rotation of music. I would really love to get out of iTunes entirely and use something slimmer, but I can't seem to find something that will offer what I need.

Here's what I want:

• The ability to port over all of my existing data such as play count, play history, ratings, etc.
• Dynamic playlist support. For instance, I want to be able to make a playlist that will only include tracks rated above a certain threshold and hasn't been played in the past ten days.
• I use XP, so it would have to be Windows compliant. (unless there's a Linux-only solution... that might tip me over the edge on the way to Ubuntu)

Any ideas?

Amarok

[Prefader]

I highly recommend you check out Amarok - it's a KDE app, but is installable under gnome. Then, try http://zanfishen.com/delights/itunesratings.html [zanfishen.com] to import your itunes playcounts and ratings. Amarok supports dynamic playlists, as well.

I've been using Amarok for about a year now under Kubuntu (7.04 - I specifically had problems with 7.10 and my iPod Video, YMMV), and wouldn't dream about going back to iTunes.

Good luck!