Rhythmbox is not a good musican, it's a real pain in the ■■■■, I can't do anything with it. Compared to Rhythmbox, eg. Syonara offers the same functions and it works! No start up problems (alternative toolbar), coverart browser and so on 
I agree, i use Google Play Music Desktop Player.
Before moving to Ubuntu Mate i was using Kubuntu and the Amarok Audio Player which in my view is loads better than Rhythmbox. downside of using Amarok is that it pulls in a load of KDE dependencies.
Edit: Also VLC is good for media including audio.
I’ve been using/testing many players. All of them too complicated, or doing too much for what is needed really. All you want is to hear music - no fancy stuff.
Rhythmbox does what it does. It plays streams or your local music files. No fuzz, no widgets. That’s what most people need. That’s probably why it is used as ‘default’ since most users won’t look for anything else.
If you have more need then that then you’re free to install whatever you need. But don’t kill a ‘default’ just for that.
W
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Rhythmbox works perfectly. Allows me to repeat. No other player allows this. It’s already a pain in the… that the Gnome basend Rhythmbox lost this setting and other settings, because they axed the menu.
I love my UM as it with Rhythmbox.
You can install and use what you want but don’t always try to change everything because there is a new kid on the block.
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I had tried a couple of players, go back to Rhythmbox and now I think, I better left my hands off. With plugins it’s running unstable (not only) for me and have some strange behaviours. In my oppion, a music player could be better for a default installed app. But nonetheless, Ubuntu MATE is super, I love it and the installation of another music player is also done quickly.
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I agree i do everything with VLC,music ,video ...
So the VLC must be part of the base software of Ubuntu-Mate
VLC is preinstalled on every flavor of Ubuntu, and probably every other distribution. It certainly isn't something which comes with MATE only.
It is incredibly useful, although there are some few video files for which I have to use smplayer.
In Ubuntu Mate VLC does not came pre install, but I agree with you smplayer is better to specific tasks
I tried many audio players but the only light and fast player is strawberry a fork of clementine without those online sh**t functions.
https://www.strawbs.org/
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For playing audio tracks I'm using audacious. I also use to to listen at online radio.
I think it's lighter on resources...
Hello
online radio - I use radiotray-ng. I used to use radiotray but it does not seem to be actively developed any more.
radiotray-ng works well and integrates (title pop-ups) well with my "traditional" theme with a top and bottom panel.
Information:
download:
I'm glad I found this. Thanks to the developer(s). 
I'm an audacious fan, too. Mostly use it for online radio and listening to the occasional individual track. For browsing and playing whole albums in my large collection, rhythmbox is great - I like the nice clear browser.
+ for Audacious! I do not use anything else for audio and radio.
Recently I came across DeaDBeeF and Quod Libet and they are definitly 2 very good choices for those who don't appreciate Rhythmbox.
But it's not because you don't like Rythmbox that it should not be the default music player in Ubuntu MATE, a lot of people are feeling confortable with it. Feel free to remove it and replace it with the one you like 
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Another + for Audacious. It's simply better for the task than anything else I've seen lately because it just wants to be a music player, not a 400TB database of worthless metadata for everything you've ever listened to coupled to a xapian-quality search engine for it, or similar White Elephant gimmicks.
That said, I can sort-of see why someone might like Rhythymbox (and not just because of head trauma) - it's got a big friendly UI and such. But yeah, it's about the second thing I purge from all my installs, right after all the fonts the I'll never use.