I am a VB5 programmer (a 3rd world app ) and playing MP3's in VB5 is as easy to do Hello World.
Just add a Windows Media Player control on your form (don't worry, everybody that have win95/98/me/2000/nt have this control built in), call it wmp and check this out:
Code:
'Make it only for music with no video
Private Sub Form_Load()
wmp.Visible = True
End Sub

'Make a Common Dialog control and call it cod
cod.ShowOpen
wmp.Open cod.FileName

'Play
wmp.Play

'Pause
wmp.Pause

'Stop
wmp.Stop

'Get File Name
MsgBox wmp.FileName
Is it good?