(March 1st, 2025)
That’s the acronym, that’s what it stands for. Like those Russian nesting dolls, every WACUP has infinitely more WACUPs in its name. Mathematicians are still trying to figure out further and further levels of WACUP, but really, I don’t think there’s much of a point to it.
WACUP is a free media player that you can download onto your lovely little laptop to play practically any audio file your heart desires. It’s a fork of Winamp, which believe it or not, is also a media player—WACUP in fact apparently stands for WinAmp Community Update Project (though I like my suggestion a little more). It’s a simple but effective application with all the features you could really ask for: you can make playlists, mess around with EQ settings, edit metadata, check lyrics, stare at crazy audio visualizations, import podcasts, and even listen to online radio (and since it’s in active development, more features are to come with time). And most importantly? It just looks cooler than Groove Music or Windows Media Player or whatever in the world Mac users are stuck with by default. It comes with a bunch of skins and color themes to choose from, and you can find a bajillion more online, easily browsable by clicking the “get more skins” button in the options. I found a Stuart Little-themed one that is so, so ugly, but it could be mine if I really wanted it to be (I don’t). Life is beautiful, and the possibilities are endless.
The default theme. (Oh my god, you guys! Frutiger Aero! Look! Look, it’s Frutiger Aero! Oh my god! Frutiger Aero! Wow! Frutiger Aero…!)
In the age of streaming services, old-fashioned media players can sometimes feel antiquated and obsolete. Luckily, I made this nice little chart comparative “chart”:
WACUP:
Spotify:
(or whatever streaming service you may use)
The biggest hassle setting up WACUP, or switching from streaming to any media player really, is in actually acquiring all the audio files you want. It can be a bit of a scavenger hunt—ideally, you slowly build your library over time instead of trying to get everything you could possibly want to listen to at once. A one-time Bandcamp purchase of an album does more to contribute financially to a favorite artist of yours than any realistic amount of Spotify streams (especially on Bandcamp Fridays, where 100% of the your money goes to the artists), though not all artists put their stuff up for sale on it.
Uh. That’s an interesting circumstance you’re in, for sure. You can use Lucida or something to rip their music straight from a streaming service for free, but if you do this to a small artist who provides another way of acquiring their music, you’re probably evil!
There’s also certainly a greater convenience to streaming services—although the non-internet nature of WACUP means that you can enjoy your music whenever you want regardless of the whims of your wi-fi, it is also distinctly trapped on your computer. Comparatively, I can open Spotify up on my phone whenever I want, tap on whatever the weirdest-looking album it decides to recommend me for the day is, and be immersed in an entirely new (though of… varying quality) musical experience right then and there. No downloading files, no contribution to the slow whittling away of my storage space—really not much thought necessary to explore its library at all. It’s not an easy thing to completely abandon, even if I necessarily wanted to—random Spotify and even YouTube recommendations remain the number one way I stumble upon new music.
WACUP is by nature a much more intentional process. You’ve gotta curate your library—anything you listen to (outside of the radio) is something you have to specifically put there in the first place. My WACUP listening tendencies are different from those of Spotify—listening through specific albums rather than turning to the fabled MEGA PLAYLIST—likely just as a result of the way things are organized on each platform. It provides a very different experience, but one that I think can be just as valuable.
So there’s my call to consider giving WACUP a shot. Or maybe you find a different audio player you think is way cooler that makes WACUP look stupid and pathetic in comparison and you download that instead. That’s cool too. It’s whatever…
(I’ll just be hanging out here with Stuart Little. Without you.)
