Winamp skins

I did not use winamp back when it was at its popularity peak. I do remember having it installed on my big old desktop PC as a kid, but my first portable music player was an ipod shuffle, which means I started managing my music library in Itunes. But i recently came across the winamp skin bot and the winamp skin museum which immediately gave me a case of nostalgia-for-something-I've-never-experienced. I also sometimes want to try to host my music locally again. So I thought I'll take a look at Winamp. The original software seems to be more or less abandonware, the ip has been bought by a company which tries to bring it to nft land (ew). The best solution on windows seems to be WACUP which is still actively maintained. Since I also use a linux machine I opted for audacious which has support for classic winamp skins.

Skinned time capsules

Whether you are a fan of mister bean, cowboy bebop, stuart little or mario bros. 3, you can listen to your music with a music player that affirms your appreciation for these cultural objects. An interesting side effect is that looking at the skin museum is like looking back in time at what tv series, videogames and artists where popular in the early 2000. That's pretty cool to see. And with the advent of streaming platforms, and most of the music listening being moved there, I wonder what will persist from our favourite cultural objects. It's also a problem for preservation. I'm saying nothing new there, but when digital stores like for the 3DS and Wii U close, what happens to those titles? Of course it's not that physical mediums are per se the better solution, especially in terms of the polution generated by manufacturing, technological obsolescence and supply. I just think it's cool that I can still go through my father's vinyl collection from when he was a kid, and I'm not sure what will happen with my steam library and spotify playlist.

Making something your own

There is something to be said about making your own tools, customizable software, programs that don't actively prevent you from making them better. Rather than monolithic proprietary software, we need specialized tools that do what they need to and nothing more. That can mean having to hack around to make a tool fit your needs, but it also means having good options for customization. In the case of skins, the modifications are mostly cosmetic, but at the core, whether you have a matrix or legend of zelda skin, it is still a working music player. It's impressive that a software can still be usable even though it looks so different from user to user. Moreover, these cosmetic adjustments can also kinda be used to change the functionality. You don't need EQing in your music player? just remove it from the skin. Sure it's technically still there, but you decide the balance between form and function. That was the case with another skin I like, lainampborders, by Emily. I noticed that it was missing the little cogwheel in the top left to access the settings. So I added it in, as well as the EQ and playlist mention. I'm sure there are tools to make the process easier, but I just compared two skins, figured out what had to be added where and then drew it in.

This definitely made me want to create more skins around video games I like for example, but the manual process I used to modify the above skin is a bit too tedious to create a full skin from scratch. It also pushed me to buy more music to host locally. The drawback of course is storage, but it supports the artist rather than throwing money at streaming giants. I also love the option that the player has to stay always on top, that's very useful. I also like that it's unecessary. I don't need to have a lain themed music player in the corner of my screen, but if I can, I sure will!