Georgia-ReBORN: a dynamic colour foobar2000 theme driven by album art

A theme, not a player

Georgia-ReBORN is a feature-rich foobar2000 theme developed and based on Mordred's original Georgia. The repository makes the shape obvious: the top level holds a LICENSE.md, a README.md and a profile/ directory, and the primary language is listed as HTML. The project is the theme and its assets, not the audio player itself. foobar2000 is the host, and Georgia-ReBORN is what runs inside it.

That distinction matters for evaluation, because a foobar2000 user is by definition someone who has already chosen that player, and this project is about the appearance and behaviour of the interface on top of it. The README states the purpose plainly, to be used mainly as a desktop version, with the layout modified to look clean and simple without any distractions, and with the cover artwork and playlist as the main focus.

The upstream credit is explicit in the README, and the same courtesy is extended to the other component. WilB's library and biography script has been integrated and modified to fit the overall design. So the project is an assembly: the Georgia layout as its base, a dynamic colour engine of its own, and a library and biography layer adapted from another author's work.

The repository topics list foobar2000, theme, skins, fb2k, audio, music and, notably, linux, wine and winetricks, which tells you the practical way to run it on a non Windows machine is foobar2000 under Wine rather than a native port.

The Reborn theme recolours the player from the album art

The headline feature is the special theme called Reborn, and the mechanism is what makes it different from a colour scheme you pick once. Based on Mordred's dynamic color change feature, this theme completely changes its appearance based on album art, which the README describes as meaning there are unlimited possibilities for how the player will look, and that every new album you play will be a new experience.

So the colours are not chosen by you, they are derived from the artwork of the track currently playing. That is a genuinely different interaction from picking a theme, because the player becomes a moving image of your music rather than a fixed interface.

Around that sit the other theming layers, and they are worth separating because they are independent axes. There are the 11 existing themes offered under Options > Theme, plus Reborn as the special one, so 12 in total as the feature list states. If you want to change the active theme's default look, you activate different styles under Options > Style, and each column in the context menu can have one activated style, meaning you can combine styles. The README notes that some active themes have more or fewer styles available, and that you can spend hours experimenting.

On top of that sit the presets under Options > Preset, with 88 of them in total, one set per theme. There is a quick access control on the lower bar that picks a random preset, and a preset harmonic select mode under Options > Preset > Select mode, which automatically adjusts and picks a harmonic preset based on the current playing album art. That last one is the most interesting interaction, because it means the preset follows the music too, so a dark album gets a dark preset and a bright one gets a bright one.

The library, biography and lyrics layers

The library view is where the project does more than paint a background. The library has its own default Georgia-ReBORN design on top of the 8 existing built-in designs, and the classical tree view can be changed swiftly by right-clicking for the context menu and choosing Show album art, with Tree view as the way back.

When album art is active, new options appear under Options > Library > Album art. The layout feature is not available for List view with album covers or artist photos, and for Flow mode, which is an honest limitation rather than a bug. You can also change the layout by right-clicking and choosing Change layout to full width or to normal width depending on the current state, and there is dynamic thumbnail resizing, with the thumbnail size changing according to the foobar player size.

Artist photos need a path, and the README says so plainly. You link your path to your biography directory through File > Preferences > Display, under Album art, on the Artist tab, where you set the full path, with a Windows example given. Once you fetch the images from the biography, it automatically updates your library with the photos, and you can switch the view from albums to artists with the Show artists option in the right-click menu, and back with Show albums.

The biography panel has its own options under Options > Biography or through the context menu, with 4 different biography layouts to choose from and top as the default. There is also an automatic lyric fetcher, and the lyrics are colour coded by sync state, with synced lyrics highlighted in a theme colour and unsynced lyrics in the default white text colour. That last detail is a small design decision that shows the theme's logic, since the lyric colour is itself derived from the theme rather than being a separate hard coded value.

Layouts, sizes and the small failsafe

Georgia-ReBORN supports 4K resolutions and adjusts theme elements based on DPI and screen size. There are predefined sizes under Options > Player size, and each layout has 3 different sizes. You can resize foobar as you like, but there are minimum size restrictions to prevent button and text overlapping, and there are 3 different layouts to choose from under Options > Layout.

The note at the end of that section is the detail worth internalising. Georgia-ReBORN starts in player size Small as a failsafe player size for small resolution monitor or laptop screens, and looks best if you switch to Normal or a larger player size. That is a sensible default for a theme that scales to arbitrary displays, and it also means the first impression of the theme is its smallest, least characteristic configuration. A new user who does not go into the options will conclude the theme is simpler than it is.

Fullscreen mode is also supported, and the theme is explicitly aimed at the desktop rather than at a small panel, which is consistent with the stated purpose of being used mainly as a desktop version.

The image packs are optional and contain artist logos and record labels, which are displayed in the Details view. They are downloaded separately and extracted to the foobar2000\profile\georgia-reborn\images directory, so the theme works without them and simply shows less in the Details pane.

Where Georgia-ReBORN is the wrong tool

Three cases argue against it. The first is a user who does not run foobar2000. This is a theme for a specific player, and if you are on a different player, or you are happy with your current one's appearance, there is nothing here for you. The second case is a Linux user without Wine. The topic tags mention linux, wine and winetricks, which is a hint rather than a port, so on Linux you are running foobar2000 itself under a compatibility layer, and that is a configuration burden the project does not remove.

The third case is a user who wants a simple player. The README says the goal is a clean and simple layout without distractions, and it is true that the default view is uncluttered, but the configuration surface is large. Twelve themes, styles per column, 88 presets, a harmonic select mode, four biography layouts, a lyric fetcher, artist photo path configuration, album art options, layouts, sizes, and an image pack system. The result is a player that rewards tinkering and that a minimalist user will find busy to configure even if the default screen is calm.

There is also a content dependency that is easy to miss. The disc art is not included, the README says you need to download it from fanart.tv, and if you have no disc art you choose between 13 self-created placeholders under Options > Details > Disc art. And the artist logos and record labels come from optional image packs hosted on Google Drive links, which are the kind of link that rots.

On maintenance, the release history shows three release candidates for 3.0, with RC1 in June 2023, RC2 in September 2023 and RC3 in May 2025, and the last push on 2026-07-25. The project is MIT licensed with a LICENSE.md at the root. The project also keeps a resources repository with templates for disc art placeholders and other graphics, and the README invites people to share their creations in a HydrogenAudio thread or in the GitHub Discussions area, which is a sign of a community around it rather than a solo project.

Editorial conclusion

Georgia-ReBORN suits a foobar2000 user on Windows who wants a visually distinctive player and enjoys tuning themes, styles and presets, and who is happy to fetch optional image packs. It does not suit someone who wants a different audio player, since the project is a theme rather than a player, and it does not suit a Linux user without Wine, since the repository topics list wine and winetricks but the target is foobar2000 on Windows. Before you install it, read the FAQ for the biography path and disc art placeholders, and note that the last push was on 2026-07-25 with the newest release 3.0-RC3 from 2025-05-29.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. License: MIT
3. README
4. Releases
5. TT-ReBORN/Georgia-ReBORN on GitHub