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.

[Ricardo_Cunha]

In order to make life easier for Spotify developers, I share my experiences. The problem, in fact, is intermittent. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not, that is, from time to time Spotify manages to shuffle the playlist well. One solution (hopefully temporary) I found is to stop playing the playlist and restart it. This also sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. When it doesn't work, it keeps playing the nearby songs (in the playlist) to those that were playing before the restart.

[PennySpeaks]

The shuffle function definitely focuses on how you have your playlist
sorted. If it is alphabetically by artist, title or album, it will focus on
those at the top of the list. If it is most recent, you'll get only stuff
recently added. The best work-around I have found is to leave it sorted at
"Most Recently Added" and scroll down in my lists of 4-7k songs to some
random spot in the middle. Click on a song there with the shuffle function
already on. That does pretty good but I still go through the queue and
eliminate any artists that show up more than once or maybe twice in those
first 50 or whatever songs queued up.

[kinzr13]

I'm having an annoying shuffle glitch with a playlist.  I have a playlist of 129 songs, relatively evenly disributed between 3 artists...basically I've added 3 - 4 full albums from each artist to the playlist.  Now this playlist existed for about a year with just 2 artists in it, and I just added a few albums from the third artist.  When I play the playlist on shuffle it's playing the most recently added artist almost exclusively.  I've closed and re-started Spotify (desktop) and began playing the playlist again and it seems that it only wants to play the 1 artist.  Right now, after trying the thigns mentioned above, when I look at the queue there are 30 songs from that most recent artist (out of 55 total songs by them) lined up before it gets to a different artist.  The chances of that happening "randomly" have to be tiny.

[35191]

It is obvious that nobody at Spotify is actually reading these posts. My quess is that they just don't care about their customers. Maybe some attention on Twitter will wake them up, so instead of complaining in this forum let's make this hashtag trending:

#SpotifyShuffleSucks

[PennySpeaks]

and include a screenshot of every complaint #SpotifyShuffleSucks

[giordanoluna]

The new shuffle improvements is a dissaster. In my favorites list, where I have 2200 songs, the new algorithm plays not more than 50 and repeats again and again a pool than 15 artists, no more. In fact, often it plays 3 songs consecutive by the same artist. This is a disaster

El nuevo sistema de reproduycción aleatoria es un  verdadero desastre. En mi lista de favoritos, donde tengo más de 2200 canciones, el sistema me reproduce no más de 50, se queda pegado en no más de 15 artistas y de hecho, muchas veces me pone tres canciones seguidas del mismo artista. Esto me sucede en cualquier dispositivo. Un desastre

[PennySpeaks]

I've been on this topic for 2+ years... every time I get an email I'm
posting to Twitter: .@Spotify and @SpotifyCares Re: Implement an actual
shuffle function https://buff.ly/2McjLEI #SpotifyShuffleSucks

[ricardohdz]

Regarding: "we have made some improvements to our shuffle algorithm that we are turning on as a default for all users."

Please disable this feature by default, this is an example of bad user experience. Not all users want/use this feature.

[PennySpeaks]

Recived the following responses to @#SpotifyShuffleSucks

[Skyealana]

Shuffle really needs to be implemented properly. Spotify is far superior to all main competetors on almost EVERY other point. But **bleep**, this bad shuffle is the only thing ruining it for me right now. I feel like out of the 1200~ songs I have on a playlist I hear the same hundred over and over again over a few days.