Implement an actual shuffle function

[RoninTheOrigina]

Yes, you read that right.  The "shuffle" function in Spotify is nothing more than a randomizer.  There's a difference?  YES.

RANDOM - Play one song.  The next song can be ANY song in your playlist.  Including the one you just listened to.  Though I've never had this specifically happen, I literally just heard the same song that I heard 2 songs ago.  This is how Spotify's "shuffle" currently functions.

SHUFFLE - Take your entire list, shuffle them (like cards), and play the first song in the shuffle.  Once finished, move that song off the pile.  Once the pile is depleted, shuffle the deck again and start over (maybe pop a message up).

I know enough about programming (not much) to know that shuffling is probably a bit harder than random, but come on.  I may be in the minority, but I don't have a lot of little playlists.  I have one list with nearly a thousand songs in it, because I like all the music, and am rarely not in the mood for one of those songs.  But what I can't stand is hearing the same song over and over again.  I think there may even be songs in my list I haven't heard yet, while I've heard others 4-5 times.

I know it may not matter much, but I would probably lay down the money for at least a year subscription if this feature was implemented.

EDIT: Another user pointed out that I can see what all is queued up in my shuffle by clicking the Play Queue link, and that Spotify supposedly sets up a rolling shuffle of 50 songs.  It would be nice if this range could be expanded to say 50-100% of your playlist.

EDIT 4/6/12: I just dealt with the same song 16 tracks later.  The song played the first time yesterday afternoon.  I went home, listened for a bit on my home PC (just a few songs), then started listening again this morning.  If the list recycles itself after a day, or if you log in from another computer, I see that as an area for improvement.

[Ppozniak]

I was forced to remove from my library another a few bands because they always appeared after shuffle.

It's so predictible that I really started to hate some of my bands.

I have 2000+ songs. Please some mathematican tell me what's the probability of hearing the same band that has something around 15 songs after every shuffle play in a window of 20 first songs?

[Ppozniak]

Also Spotify deleted my Idea of turning this topic back to Open, and made it a redirect to this post. Pathetic.

[rednblu]

      >>  Also Spotify deleted . . . . <<

Yes, Spotify does many things wrong-- for example, Spotify has disabled the most important modern necessities from this wrongly labeled forum as "Implemented ideas".  (all guffaw)

However, the Spotify shuffle works perfectly on every installation of Windows 10 Spotify player running the latest version-- currently 1.0.83.344 on my only Windows 10 installation that I have not [Blocked all Spotify updates].

You just have to use the Windows 10 Spotify player in the mode that it works for you.  For example, to avoid infuriating repeats and inserted advertisements, I had to run my Windows 10 Spotify player thusly--

* Never use the Connect feature-- because the Connect feature apparently always repeats some batch of just 100 tracks from somewhere-- not even from my actual playlist of any size above 100 tracks.

* Every time I restart my Windows 10 Spotify player, I have to initialize the shuffle to On-- by shuffle playing from just one single 9000 track playlist.

* Then I click on my Huge Playlist folder containing 10 of my 9000 track playlists-- Then I click the Green Play button-- And then my Windows 10 Spotify player does not repeat in any fashion that detracts from my hearing a gorgeous sampling of the wide array of impressive performances of music from all over the world and over all time-- playing for days without stopping and without any repeats that bother me.

Has everyone here found a way to make the shuffle on the Windows 10 Spotify player work perfectly by never using the Connect feature?

[PennySpeaks]

​How do you turn Off the connect feature?

​

[kbartley8]

Shuffle STILL doesn't shuffle very well. If i shuffle all of my songs, I get the same 4 artists or albums on repeat. I have thousands of saved songs. I shouldn't hear the same album for a long time between songs. Today, I'm actually getting ONE  album shuffling for the past 8 songs!!! Nope just changed songs, make that 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14... Please make spotify actually shuffle ALL of my music.

[Brocococonut]

 Have to agree with @kbartley8 😕 I add an album to my list of over a thousand songs, and all for a sudden I get at least 10 of the tracks in the next 50 songs on shuffle.

Just let me have a completely random shuffle. Not some algorithm based prediction of what I might like on shuffle. Because I have diverse tastes and playing only songs from an album I added recently isn't great. I just want random songs from my library and to be able to skip through them as I want. I do agree with the original post about making sure it's shuffled and non-repeating though.

[HeddevH]

For this idea I'm assuming Spotify uses a smart shuffling algorithm, instead of true shuffling. If Spotify used smart shuffling that'd mean that you hear multiple songs of the same artist/genre after one another when you shuffle your playlist. If Spotify used true shuffling all tracks in your playlist would be put in a random order and then played.

What usually happens when I shuffle my largest playlist (~500 tracks) is that I usually hear the same songs, probably because Spotify 'thinks' that I like those songs much more than the other songs in my playlist. I don't, and want to hear the other music too. Therefore, I'm suggesting an option added to the settings where users can choose how smart they want their shuffling to be.

There could be the following gradations: First of all, there could be an option to turn of smart shuffling altogether (= true random shuffling). A next step could be smart shuffling based on similar songs, but not based on what Spotify thinks what your preferences are. The next step could be including those preferences in the smart shuffling, and a last gradation could be randomising the playlist (based on your preferences) instead of shuffling it, meaning that songs could be played multiple times before the entire playlist has been played, if they're similar enough to the currently playing song.

These are of course suggestions, and I'm sure I and a lot of others would already be happy with the possibility to turn of smart shuffling. I'm sure Spotify's shuffling algorithm is criticised sometimes, and giving users some control over the shuffling might actually be easier than perfecting the algorithm to fit everyone's preferences (which I think probably isn't even possible). I hope you like/will consider this suggestion!

[wk-_nad73smi]

I've been using Spotify for a few months and something I noticed as of the past few weeks is that there's two different types of "Shuffles" -

On my computer, I can click a song and it will shuffle that + 90 other songs (roughly, don't remember the exact number). And I see the same pattern of songs which is rather annoying since I know there's other songs I want to listen to in shuffle without having to play the same albums over and over.

On my phone, I can press "Shuffle Play" and it will shuffle my entire library without a problem.

Personally, I wish the shuffle on PC was more like it is on my phone. That way it actually includes everything.

[rednblu]

On your computer, after you start shuffle play--

* If you clickToPlay the last song in your PlayQueue, does your Spotify player fill your PlayQueue with another queue full of songs from your playlist?

* If you sort your playlist on TrackName before you clickToPlay some song in your playlist, does your Spotify player fill your PlayQueue with songNames from both the beginning and end of the alphabet?

[PennySpeaks]

​YES to both questions but even so, with thousands of songs to choose from,
the queue still shows 2 songs from not only the same artist, but the same
album, back to back in the queue. wth

* If you clickToPlay the last song in your PlayQueue, does your Spotify
player fill your PlayQueue with another queue full of songs from your
playlist?

* If you sort your playlist on TrackName before you clickToPlay some song
in your playlist, does your Spotify player fill your PlayQueue with
songNames from both the beginning and end of the alphabet?