substitute for itunes

I have been having problems with itunes which was freezing, taking up lots of CPU capacity and not syncing with my Ipod. I uninstalled via control panel/remove programmes and installed media monkey. However media monkey started freezing and the syncing with the ipod was unreliable (some things being stored under playlists but not under artists etc). It also duplicated all the itunes songs which I then had to manually delete. I wasn't sure whether the problem was that Itunes had not been completely removed from the system but I have since gone back and searched for itunes and deleted everything as well as following the instructions on removing itunes from: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1925 .
I have now also removed Media Monkey and am looking for an Itunes substitute that I can sync with my Ipod. I just want something simple which will work!

Any help gratefully appreciated

Matthew