In this paper we propose a new method that is suitable for shifting the frequency of Moving Picture Experts Group audio layer-3 (MP3) by changing the input of the inverse modified discrete cosine transform (IMDCT) in the process of MP3 decoding. The proposed method gives us a high quality frequency shift from the mathematical model devised by us that can extract the frequency, amplitude, and phase of the frequency component located in the subband boundary. The proposed method gained 3.8 points in a mean opinion score (MOS) test from professional composers, as well as a 0.33 and a 0.42 credit in a comparison MOS (C-MOS) test with a commercial sound editor and synchronized overlap-add (SOLA), respectively. The proposed method has a computation complexity of approximately 43% of the synchronized overlap-add (SOLA) algorithm for MP3 music, which is known as a simple frequency shift algorithm. The complexity improvement of the overall frequency shift system, including the MP3 decoder, is 23% compared with the MP3 decoder plus the SOLA system at the better audio quality.