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.

[talialalia]

Still doesn't work! Even for premium I find myself listening to all songs from the same album/artist even when it is on shuffle. It's been a year since you said it was fixed but if I wanted to listen to the songs in the same order they're in my playlist, I wouldn't have it on shuffle. Very irritated with this problem still happening. 

[user-removed]

If the playlist I listened to contains 100 songs, it plays 15 of the major songs in the shuffle feature. What Should i do?

[fraimed]

I have tons of music in my library and it is a very eclectic collection which is why I use the shuffle function. However it keeps playing the same songs over and over. I add new music thinking that will help and weeks later I still have not heard any of those songs pop up. The algorithm seems to think that I want to listen to music the way the radio plays music only 10 songs on repeat. I keep hitting skip 10-15-20 times in a row and will see the same songs come back up.

Shuffle should actually shuffle the entire library...PLEASE!!

[chrisieallen]

This is STILL an issue. It's so bad that I am consider ng dropping Spotify because this is how I like to listen to music. I have listened to one song at least 20 times in the past 2 days and I have about 300 songs on the playlist I am trying to shuffle through. I keep hearing the same songs over and over again. It's driving me crazy. I can't stand listening to Spotify sometimes because of this so I only listen to it sometimes when I'm getting tired of the radio. PLEASE FIX THIS! 

[macrettin]

I love Spotify and would like to continue using it, but I find it frustrating that on a playlist of around 100 songs, a lot of them got played well upwards of 10 times, while there are over 10-15 songs that never got played. 

Dear Spotify programmers, if you'd like to play with true random numbers, try a career in cryptography, otherwise learn how shuffle function should work, if that's not too complicated for you. The original post explains that a little bit, so try there

[andrehooijer]

I noticed that the shuffle in the Spotify app on my iPhone is actually working pretty good when I compare it to the shuffle function in the desktop version (Windows). When I use the latter it only shuffle the first 100 songs or so of the list, depending on the way your numbers are sorted.

I still find it very strange and frustrating that this is still a thing. I am a software developer my self and implementing a randomize function shouldn't be that big of a deal. Most software languages have a standardized randomization function included in their library.

[jak54]

I just started a 30 day trial. I see posting problems with "Shuffle". I have the exact same problems posted here and some of these posts are from 2012! Had same artist 3 songs in a row and had same song repeat a couple of songs later. Big problem I say.

[Buzkil]

I'm literally to the point where I am deleting the songs I am hearing more often. Only because this keeps my sanity in line. I have just about had it with the shuffling issue. Not even PANDORA has this problem, that's only if you like a song and it will play it maybe twice every two hours. SO COME ON FIX THIS **bleep** I HAVE BEEN LOYAL TO YOU SPOTIFY YOU OWE ME!!

[Oscar7654]

I agree with all comments gone before.  I would actually like my play list to play alphabetically, anyone know how I can implement this?  Just found out that the "up next" feature doesn't work either. 

[lsd1249]

I've noticed that the shuffle button works to allow you to listen to your most played songs first then the other songs, the issue with this is that if you're only shuffling songs and the ones you like the least appear first they will constantly appear first, also the fact that I don't want to listen to the same songs all the time, it's shuffle for that EXACT reason, please change it to shuffle songs either randomly, by genre or by BPM, then you could add a feature to select songs yourself to make them more likely to appear first rather than assuming what i would want to listen to. Seriously this annoys me so much.