In news I never expected to be writing, Winamp is back, baby. And yes, it’s the Winamp you’re thinking of. But let’s assume you’re not 100 years old like I am and you’ve never heard of this Winamp I speak of. Allow me to take you on a little journey.
In the early 2000s PCs were officially commonplace in households and music was a big thing. Done were the days of you having to wait by the radio with your blank tape ready to push record when your favourite song would come on, this was the era where you could go and download music directly onto your PC.
Now sure, downloading a song could take you anywhere from 4 hours to 2 days (and if your house received a phone call during that time you were out of luck) and sure, chances are that Crazy by Gnarls Barkley would instead turn out to be Moonlight Sonata but if the stars all aligned and the gods chose to smile upon you you would have your favourite song on your very own home PC to listen to whenever you wanted.
And that’s where Winamp came into the mix. Winamp was the media player that rocked the early 2000s. Not only could you use it to play your sick tunes but you could also download skins for it so that your music player would represent the anxiety tween that you were. And who could forget the accompanying visualiser that’s effects were only comparable to taking some hardcore psychedelic drugs?
Here’s a taste of what I’m talking about if you’ve never had the chance to experience it or just want a stroll down memory lane:
Anyway back to the news, after many, many, many years Winamp is back and preparing for its surprising return. However, this won’t be the Winamp from your childhood instead the program is getting a significant overhaul and will include many next-gen features today’s music listeners have come to expect.
Operating under a company called Llama Group, Winamp will be returning on the 15th of March for creators and will be back in listeners’ lives on the 15th of April. The idea is that it will provide both creators and listeners with a completely new approach to music.
On launch Winamp will allow creators to manage their own subscription models, meaning they will be able to create different tiers to provide access to their content. Think of it as Only Fans, but for music. Llama Group has also stated they will only be taking a 15 per cent cut of the revenue, meaning creators will take home 85 per cent of the money that they make on Winamp.
While the original version of Winamp was exclusive to Windows the version launching now will have a web-based platform as well as be available on Android and iPhones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoYbRjOoG5w
While the news of Winamp returning may come as a surprise, Llama Group has released some pretty staggering, albeit unbelievable numbers. According to the stats, Winamp is still being actively used by over 83 million listeners across the world, despite not receiving an update in the last decade.
But now I want to know from you, dear readers, do you make up one of the 83 million listeners still using Winamp and if not, will you be hopping onto the band waggon when the new version launches next month? Let me know.