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.

[Artracing]

The other day I had one song play three times in half hour with 1078 songs in the play list.

[sharpless]

Yes, an option to really shuffle a playlist would be wonderful.  Current "shuffle play" is way too prone to chose the same songs over and over again, so if we could in an easy way reorder our playlists with a button, that would be nice.

[Artracing]

Don't hold your breath. I noticed not matter how much you skip, it reverts back to the same common songs. In a 1000 song playlist it always plays the same hundred song. The other day I had a song play twice in a row.

That was icing on the cake. I switched back to Pandora.
I actually started listening to the "Radio" again and noticed the radio was actually more random then Spotify, but still the all to familiar repeated songs from radio.
I figure that the consumer is so trained or brain washed into living with repeated songs from radio that when they switch to Spotify that don't notice, that regardless of the size of the playlist, Spotify will still simulate the repetitive nature of the radio. Hence, the Spotify consumer will not notice the issue of repeated songs.
As long as Spotify maintains a reasonable subscription and advertiser base, and they will by default, they will never fix this problem.
If I ever hear they fix their system I might come back.

[kingtuttoo]

Wow, really?? A 2012 post is THE point of reference for the Shuffle feature, which according to this post, isn't even that. What gives? I'm not going to read through 240 posts. As far as I know, a shuffle feature is an algorithm, simple or complex, depending on the tech-geeks coding it. What is Spotify doing with its billions of profited dollars (in whatever currency you like)?

I checked in on here because my primary songlist has over 7K tracks, and on the Shuffle feature I've noticed that certain songs, less than 100, come up way too often. This, to me, is inexcusable. Yes, I have my list shuffled like cards. I even disperse additionally added songs throughout the list. Still, certain songs pop up often. A true Shuffle feature allows for a "naturally occuring" playlist, as if one were listening to a radio station, only--and this is the most awesome part about Spotify--we get to choose every song our radio station plays "randomly." On any conceivable timeline with over 7K songs, I shouldn't hear the same song for weeks. The songs I hear repeatedly are not "popular" songs; they're not "starred" songs; they're just randomly well-positioned songs in my list, apparently. 

If there truly hasn't been any real improvements over the past three years, this should be a priority for the programmers. I feel it would also be a simple one to cough up  😕

Thanks.

[vdiazstone]

This thread is shown as solved, and it is most decidedly not solved.

[hattjam1008]

Yeah, I'm noticing that it actually used to be better at "shuffling" the music in lists.  Now, it plays songs in a "shuffled" order, but if it's on repeat, it's the same "shuffled" order each time the list is repeated.  This sucks.

[gdeanblakely]

I'm trying out Spotify on my Android LG G4.  Your shuffle isn't even random.  It plays about 10% of my collection over and over.  I write and sell Android apps on Google Play.  Random shuffling is very easy to program.  Each time you want to play the next song just get a random number between zero and n where n is the number of songs in the collection and play that song.  You could put some logic in to prevent repeats withing a certain range if you want.

I find they have been discussing this problem on Reddit for years.  It would take less than an hour to fix it.

[plaidsmith]

This morning I had the same song play twice in a row.  It was "shuffling" an artist.  There are not 2 instances of that song in the artist's catalogue on Spotify.

I also experience something which is actually more annoying than the same song playing twice in a row: Spotify seems to prefer the newest album on artist shuffle.  About 50-60% of the time the next song will be from the newest album, even when there may be 10 earlier albums.  

Spotify, I'm not sure why you haven't mastered the very few things that all good music applications have already accomplished for years... an EQ and appropriate shuffling.  It's dissapointing really. (I'm a paid member for the record)

[Artracing]

I moved on. I’m done with Spotify.
I'm not going to be my own DJ and pay to do it. BS

[Rastacaptain]

https://www.random.org/lists/ provides a free shuffling feature for lists among other things. This means it can shuffle your playlist! To use this, open the Spotify app on your computer and go to the desired playlist. Using Cmd+A or Ctrl+A will highlight every song in the playlist, then Cmd+C or Ctrl+C will copy the list of songs. Next, go to the list generator and use Cmd+V or Ctrl+V to enter the links of every song (up to 10,000) in the generator. Click randomize and you will end up with a list of shuffled songs that you can copy and paste right back into the Spotify app under a new playlist title. Then play the playlist from top to bottom and enjoy your shuffled music! If you don't like the way it shuffled or want to reshuffle it, just repeat the steps above.

Can someone just pin this to the top of the thread so the people who stumble across it can find an actual solution?

Happy Listening