Who doesn’t like free? And who doesn’t like great iPad apps? When the two come together it’s good stuff. With that in mind, we’d like to share our Best Free iPad App of the Week here every weekend.

This week’s pick is Shazam Player – an alternative music player for the iPad, from the folks who brought us the super cool song-identifier Shazam app. It has been around for a while as an iPhone app but was recently upgraded to a universal app with a full iPad version.

I use my iPad a lot for listening to music at my desk, so I’m always happy to see more options like Shazam Player – and I’ve been using it a fair bit since it first hit the iPad App Store last week.

The app is easy to use and has a slick UI that keep most everything on one page. It needs to scan your music library the first time you open it – but this doesn’t take too long (depending of course on how much music you have on the iPad). This only needs to be done once, though you can make it re-scan via its settings if you have added music to your iPad.

In the player you can view your music by artists, albums, tracks, or playlists. You can also create new playlists in the Playlists section.

LyricPlay is one of the app’s fun features. If you turn it on for a track it will stream the lyrics full screen in time to the music. This works quite well most of the time – though an occasional song will get the better of it.

When you tap on a track in the Track Tray in the left sidebar you have a number of good options, including the ability to share it via Twitter and Facebook, see a bio/review of it, view the lyrics sheet, watch YouTube videos of the song, see tour dates for the artist, or add the song to your Good or Bad list (not sure why you’d have any bad tracks in your own music library but hey, you never know).

One drawback I’ve found – though I imagine this is an Apple limitation rather than the app’s – is that Shazam Player cannot see music you have shared via iTunes Home Sharing.

If you’re looking for a fun, free alternative to the built-in Music app Shazam Player is well worth a look.

Here’s an App Store link for Shazam Player; it’s a universal app designed for both iPad and iPhone.

If you’re after more great free iPad apps, be sure to check out our previous choices for Best Free iPad of the Week.