I’ve been a Linux user since 2005ish and a DJ since at least 2013. I’ve tried a lot of music players including Rythmbox. I settled on Clementine/Strawberry or Amorok, depending on use case. Haven’t used either of them recently.
With that said, there is no right answer. Find one you like!
Has friend 2 set his name servers to something custom, or is he using your network’s default? My partner uses an iPhone and it has some sort of built in DNS so she doesn’t benefit from me installing DNS based adblock on the network. You could see if a similar thing is at play.