Unpopular Music Player

Andreas Kromke

About this app

Legal disclaimer: This program neither contains music files nor does get any from the internet. It only uses files that are already accessible from the device. The screenshots are examples, i.e. the music shown is neither included in the program nor automatically created or loaded from internet.

Hint: Beginning with version 2.70 (the first one for Android 11), the application available here is slightly functionally limited, due to the new policy. However, unlimited versions may be installed from the source mentioned below.

(Please see also the advanced app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.kromke.andreas.opus1musicplayer)

A simple to use, minimalistic music player application especially designed to manage classical music. The application typically accesses local files only and uses very low system resources. For editing audio metadata the Classical Music Tagger can directly called within the program. External storage is accessible by using the "SAF Media Scanner".


Is Johnny Brahms' double concerto a "Song"? Who is singing? And who is the "artist"? The orchestra? The soloists? Or the mentioned Johnny? What about its three movements? Are these all separate "Songs"?

Why does my favourite music player present all my music as "Allegro" and I never know which one is currently playing? Is there nobody who's interested in the composer of an opus? Why are are my album and titles truncated to "Carl Philipp Eman.." or "Clara Schumann: Sona.."?

Most music player applications are designed for so called "pop music" (and so is the Android system itself). Thus obviously other kinds of music, like classical music or baroque music, are "unpopular", aren't they? But those people dealing with classical music usually are also interested in the composer, not only the performer, who might be not the same person (which is the less probable, the longer the composer's date of death lies before the date of the performance). Also it's quite normal that an opus, like a symphony, consists of several movements or an opera of an overture and several arias (by the way, an aria is a kind of song, isn't it?).

The Unpopular Music Player is a simple application which is designed to (also) play "unpopular" music (e.g. classic, baroque, romantic usw.). Music files are not only grouped in "albums", but also in opera (or opuses?) , e.g. the movements of a cello concerto, inside the same album. The composer is also presented. If possible no information will be truncated, instead also extremely long titles (like combined movement descriptions in case of "attacca") will be shown untruncated. The goal is to present an opus on the smartphone in the same way it would be presented on a CD box or in a concert programme.

By the way, the string "song" is not used in its user interface.

Of course the application can only show what is stored inside the music files, in the so called "tags" (meta information). Suitable "tagger" apps are listed in the app's offline help text.

Meta data are transferred to a Bluetooth car radio, and the car radio can remote control the app.

Final words: Writing this application took lots of time, and putting it to the Play Store took both time and money. However, I decided to provide the application free and without advertisements for people liking classical music. So please rate this "opus 1" benevolently and in doubt first send me a message instead of providing a bad rating.Thanks in advance!

SONAQ ("seldomly or never asked questions"):

- The Unpopular Music Player is "open source", and it is also available via F-Droid (https://f-droid.org/packages/de.kromke.andreas.unpopmusicplayerfree/).
- To see the effect of the genderism setting, one needs a file with "conductor" tag, and this tag has to made visible in the settings. Additionally, the text "unknown composer" in notifications will be genderised.

Ratings and reviews

since it's touted as a classical music player i expected to at least be able to browse by composer. nope. all your music in one big list. just how is this usable?

very lightweight and fast

it works, low lag

What’s new

- SDK 36, new Gradle version and libraries.