Rhythmbox: The Best Overall Music Manager for Ubuntu?

Rhythmbox stands out as one very best (if not the best) music managers for Ubuntu Linux. I've used just about every alternative out there, and in the end, they all are either missing features or suffer stability issues. There some promising projects out there, like Exaile, Quod Libet, and Banshee, but in the end I usually come back to Rhythmbox. Here's why:

Integration. Nothing integrates better into the Ubuntu operating system than Rhythmbox. From burning CD's, to automatically importing tracks from your portable audio player, Rhythmbox is tightly integrated into the GNOME desktop environment, and thus into Ubuntu. Rhythmbox just seems to work the way you would expect it to, simply and without fuss.

Music Discovery. Rhythmbox provides access to 2 major sources for free, high quality independent and Creative Commons licensed music: Magnatune and Jamendo. Having these music "stores" integrated into Rhythmbox provides a fantastic way to find new music, buy hard copies, or even donate to the artist...all straight from Rhythmbox. In addition to music store support, Rhythmbox integrates with Last.fm, the online social radio site, so it's easy to tune into stations, rate songs, and report your listening habits to friends.

Podcast Support. With Rhythmbox, I can subscribe to all my favorite podcasts easily, and have them automatically downloaded for me. As with most Ubuntu apps, the interface for working with podcasts is simple and intuitive, and is great for helping manage all my favorite shows. Unlike applications like Banshee, Rhythmbox lets me specify a directory apart from from my main music collection for download podcasts. This is a great feature that helps me keep my multimedia nice and tidy.

Automatic Folder Watching. Rhythmbox automatically updates my collection based the folder I tell it to watch. So when I download new songs and move them to my Music folder, they are instantly added to my collection with no more hassle. Banshee and other music applications require me to manually "import" tracks, even after they've been moved to my Music folder.

The One Bug That If Fixed Would Let Me Use Rhythmbox Full-Time. The biggest issue that keeps me from using Rhythmbox all the time is lack of support for Classical music collections. As a music aficionado, the support of certain ID3 tags such as Composer and Performer are important for displaying all the information about a certain track and organizing it in your library. Unfortunately, Rhythmbox only supports basic tags, so finding all the music in my collection composed by Beethoven is a seriously difficult task.

The collective Rhythmbox feature set, along with its integration with the GNOME desktop environment, make it the most polished and--for most people--the most useful music manager for Ubuntu. Unfortunately, Classical music fans may have to look elsewhere, or fire up a different player when managing and playing their Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven.