There are many replacements for the standard Android music player. Though some of them can only be purchased, many of the best alternatives are free. Some of the most popular Android music players include:

PlayerPro

Best known for its customizable skins, PlayerPro is a common replacement for the standard Android music player.

PlayerPro adds many features, such as a lock screen, album and artist reviews, and changeable user interfaces.

PlayerPro also includes a five-band equalizer. Any type of equalizer is uncommon in Android music players, making this a notable feature.

TuneWiki

TuneWiki has many unique features in addition to its music playing capabilities.

The app allows users to view song lyrics and artiste information that is recorded in the TuneWiki database. The TuneWiki app also allows users to interact with the TuneWiki community and contribute to the database.

TuneWiki allows users to search for songs on YouTube directly from the app through an integrated menu button. TuneWiki also plays Internet radio stations.

TuneWiki works with Facebook, Twitter, SMS, or email to allow one’s friends to view the song that one is listening to.

MixZing

MixZing features a wide spectrum equalizer, which is a rare feature on Android music players. However, this equalizer places an additional load on the device’s computing resources and drains battery life, so consider this carefully.

MixZing is well known for its recommendations engine, which functions very similarly to iTunes Genius. Whenever music is played in the app, MixZing generates a playlist of similar songs culled from the user’s library.

Though the free version of MixZing is fully functional, the full app must be purchased to remove all ads.

Meridian

Meridian has many of the features that MixZing has, with support for additional file types such as FLAC and ACE.

Meridian also has a “gesture” feature, which allows for a set of unique swiping features that change tracks or skip back and forward within a track.

Meridian has a rating feature as well, which allows users to filter out songs below a certain rating in the library.

Winamp

Winamp has been known in the desktop computer arena for decades. It has all of the standard music playing features and it is known for its support of many different file formats.

This app’s more advanced features include streaming from a desktop Winamp player as well as wireless synchronization with the desktop Winamp app.

The Winamp Android app has many features that are most useful to people who already use the Winamp desktop music player.

Google Music

The Google Music player is an app that plays the music files on one’s device, much like any other music player, but it also has streaming capabilities from the Google Music server. Google Music servers allow up to 20,000 songs to be uploaded and stored on a free account that can be streamed from any time a WiFi or 3G connection is available.

The Google Music app also allows the user to select the songs that will be available when his/her phone is offline.

As of September 2011, Google Music is still in the beta stages, but accounts are available through invitation. Google Music is an entirely free service.