I use RhythmMusicBox for audio.
You mean format as in like to ntfs?
If you just plug it in, to wipe it clean, Ctl+A (selects all), then
Ctl+X deletes it all. Its ready to go again.

But you can also use Partition Editor to actually format it.

What Audio player are you speaking of? Like IPOD or Zume? I use my cell phone
and the flash is all ready to go when I plug it in to the PC. Some cell phones
will formate the flash.

vlc player...............................

For music (mp3s, oggs and internet radio) I like rhythmbox, but it's all
a matter of personal taste I suppose.

There should be some sort of GUI thingie for that, but you can always
drop to the command line and use mkfs with the appropriate options for
the type of filesystem you are creating. If you just want to format it
as vfat, I think mtools provides a way to do it with the mformat
command, but I haven't used it in awhile so I'd have to have a peek at
the man page to see how to use it for removable media.