I've been using this for a while now: https://github.com/tombonez/noTunes
Source code for this one: https://github.com/FuzzyIdeas/MusicDecoy
Same. noTunes works perfectly. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.
noTunes is one of the first things I install on a new mac.
It seems I need to leave this running for it to work? So it's not just a configuration changes.