Your Ideas At Work: Shuffle Improvements

[meahtenoha]

The Community Ideas Board isn’t just about requesting new features. It’s also about improving the features already in Spotify.

Take our shuffle algorithm for instance.

The Idea “Implement an actual shuffle function” by Community user @RoninTheOrigina  gathered over 850 votes.  Users were vocal in their comments about what they wanted (and didn’t want) when it came to shuffling playlists.

We then passed this knowledge on and our teams got to work.

The result: an improved shuffling algorithm that avoids playing a couple songs from an artist too close together.

If you’re thinking, “that sounds kind of vague, what are these improvements” then fret no more.

Spotify’s @lukasP  has written an extensive blog post on how we gathered user feedback on Shuffle, analyzed their comments, took a hard look at our previous algorithm and found the best way to bring the improvements users wanted.

We’re aware this doesn’t fix all shuffling issues forever. Rest assured we are still working on this though.  You’ll also see the new algorithm in other clients other than desktop soon.

Now go hit shuffle on your favorite playlist and reap the benefits of your hard work clicking that Kudos button.

Enjoy!

[jayhalderman]

How about not playing songs with the same lead singer back to back, which happens on every playlist every single day?

The same singer in multiple bands and as solo frequently appear in close proximity (usually two tracks in a row).  This is statistically improbable from the size of my playslists and feels like poorly constructed shuffle logic.

[user-removed]

I’m a programmer. I’m a mediocre programmer. A true shuffle program is computer science 101. It is 2019 and this has been a problem since at least 2014. It took years for Spotify to even agree to provide a simple sort by name function for playlists and albums and other categories. I don’t understand why Spotify cannot or will not implement these things quickly or, in the case of shuffle, at all.  But I’ve had enough. I’m closing my Spotify account. I simply do not understand how such a seemingly talented development team can be so incompetent. But I’m doing giving it any money. Good riddance. 

[dnm]

I've canceled spotify because they fund Joe Rogan and his misinformation.

Couple that with multiple year old fundamental problems with their garbage software, and I'm out.

[BigTom]

Before I knew of this "improvement" I sent (today, July 28, 2019) this complaint to Spotify Support regarding the CURRENT Shuffle feature. Frankly, the Shuffle feature is still very inadequate. (note: the email was a request for 3 improvements to their app. Following is my second suggestion only):  2) Improved ‘Shuffle’ feature. This feature does a crummy job of shuffling, it only seems to shuffle a few tracks around but leaves most tracks in sequence.

[dnm]

I've canceled spotify because they fund Joe Rogan and his misinformation.

Couple that with multiple year old fundamental problems with their garbage software, and I'm out.