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.

[aeonden]

In my playlists shuffle plays the same songs or plays songs from a particular artist most often. And also the algorithm really sucks in general. When shuffled a playlist it plays one song from the beginning one song from the end, one from the end one from the beginning or vice versa... and goes on like this. It doesn't play from the middle, like there are no songs lol. This is %&!^# absurd. I really don't understand how you still call these improvements, they are not.

Ok now please listen to me carefully, we have a perfect example how shuffle should be imo. And it's been around for years now. Have you ever heard a player called winamp? No? Then try these step by step please 'cause I don't know how to tell this easier.

Ok now download and open it. Let's start with an easy example. Load 10 songs and double click the first song and press shuffle button. Press next. Next. Next, until the list stops playing. You see how random it plays? Now double click the first song again and press next. What's that? It plays the list in a different order this time. Wouv. It must be magic, huh? It isn't 😉

Try this experiment with a list of 100 songs etc it always plays randomly.
It never gives priority to some artist because he has let's say 15 songs in that playlist. Or it doesn't give any priority to songs that have been listened less. The algorithm doesn't read artist/song/album IDs. Only numbers. If you have a playlist with 100 songs it starts from a random song and randomly selects another until every song is played once regardless of listening counts etc.

I believe you'll get the idea... I mean how hard can it be?

[rednblu]

Bravo, @aeonden!

Perfectly said!-- I say-- since Spotify has taken off all functional "Like" and "WhoHasLiked" buttons from this completely "UNimplemented idea" for an Actual spotify shuffle.  Thanks, @aeonden! . . . .

[fernandogomez]

I am quite mad about Spotify's shuffle, and it's not just me, some friends of mine are too. I created a playlist of 2500 songs because I was tired of listening to the same songs over and over again from my 100 song playlist, and guess what, the songs still repeated themselves. I don't know which algorithm Spotify uses but I think there's something a bit wrong with it. Please change it because I love Spotify but I'm actually starting to think about canceling my premium subscription and just listen music elsewhere. 

[thetallguyuk]

SHUFFLE is entirely broken or I've found the limits of how it works.

I have set up a playlist of 2900 songs that I love playing. BUT I dont to listen to them in the order I added them. I want to listen to them all in a random order, and it never to repeat them.

So I use the SHUFFLE option as that would assume you would shuffle the entire playlist.

But it DOESNT, all your shuffle does is choose 100 random songs from the playlist and will ONLY play those songs, so if I go to the end of the queued shuffle songs it then goes back to the first one and doesnt play any of the other 2800 songs in the playlist!!!!!

Trust me I've messed about with it tons of times and it does the same every single time.
The only way to change that 100 songs is to stop the app and then open it again, but then its only the same 100 songs again!!!!!!

Can you let me know how this can be avoided so shuffle does actually shuffle my playlist of 2900 songs!!!!!

[thetallguyuk]

SHUFFLE is entirely broken or I've found the limits of how it works.

I have set up a playlist of 2900 songs that I love playing. BUT I dont to listen to them in the order I added them. I want to listen to them all in a random order, and it never to repeat them.

So I use the SHUFFLE option as that would assume you would shuffle the entire playlist.

But it DOESNT, all your shuffle does is choose 100 random songs from the playlist and will ONLY play those songs, so if I go to the end of the queued shuffle songs it then goes back to the first one and doesnt play any of the other 2800 songs in the playlist!!!!!

Trust me I've messed about with it tons of times and it does the same every single time.
The only way to change that 100 songs is to stop the app and then open it again, but then its only the same 100 songs again!!!!!!

Can you let me know how this can be avoided so shuffle does actually shuffle my playlist of 2900 songs!!!!!

[user-removed]

Here's an idea spotify, create two players, one for premium, one for free. Then you keep your money making algorithm with free user's and they can deal with the song repeats. Premium users then get a proper shuffling algorithm that keeps a list of songs played and compares that with the list of songs in the playlist. Call this playlist metadata. If the metadata of songs played doesn't match the count of the songs in the playlist, then find which songs haven't been played yet.

When the number of the two lists matches - metadata and playlist songs - then reset the counter of songs played. Come on, how hard can this be?

The whole randomizing playlist was great on Winamp (oh the 90s) where you could shuffle your playlist easily; this would be the easiest feature ever to implement. Allow us to randomize our playlists through your tools easier if you guys can't figure out how to shuffle a playlist.

[___kraig___]

 I have a playlist that has my 5 most listened to bands in it.

If I uninstall/reinstall Spotify then for the first few listens, the shuffle feature actually mixes up the tracks...

Until I restart my PC.

Then i end up with the same artist played 5/6 times in a row, followed by one of the other artists 3/4 times, then back to the previous artist for another 6/7 songs. But once again, if I uninstall/reinstall Spotify and play the same playlist, the order gets mixed up properly again.

What gives?

[marbloc11]

I seriously ditto this.  It is inferiorating to build a nice big list and have this happen.  How is there not a more robust shuffle function available? We're building robots with emotions but we can't shuffle 5000 songs? This is enough to have me go somewhere else for my music pleasure.

[user-removed]

So disappointed in the shuffle play option. Instead of getting a selection of the whole catalogue, you only get a selection or 2 or 3 albums.

[rednblu]

* Why doesn't Spotify fix the obviously broken Shuffle?

* Which streaming service is better than Spotify?

Details under the Spoiler_DropDown . . . .

Spoiler

My friends asked me to use this Spoiler_DropDown_Format to keep from interrupting "the flow" of the heroic attempts to convince Spotify to fix the obviously broken SpotifyShuffle.

* Spotify cannot fix the Shuffle right now-- I would guess because over 99% of Spotify's paying customers do not object to the repeats that the SpotifyShuffle injects into their listening devices.

* So to the extent that listening to Spotify is exactly what nourishes your soul, you will have to make your own "user programming fixes" to make Spotify work right.

* None of my friends find any music streaming service listed in any "Top 10 music streaming sites" to be significantly better than Spotify-- None of the "shuffles" are better-- all failing after three hours of play.

* My friends have used all of your suggestions and attempted fixes in this thread to put together a WorkingPrototype of a TotalSolution at >> this link. <<  This WorkingPrototype_Solution can move to any of the other streaming services whenever any of the other streaming services are better than Spotify.  Your continued comments on this thread are necessary contributions to improving that WorkingSolution for all of us-- So I give every writer on this thread another "Like" for every posting-- a virtual Like, of course, since this Spotify discussion software is broken (I laugh.)-- And Thank you, thank you!-- Necessary contributions from all of you, especially @thetallguyuk, @user-removed, @___kraig___, @marbloc11, @user-removed,  . . .

* Using my particular version of that WorkingPrototype-- for any 30 day period-- I get only the "duplicate" plays that I specifically insert manually into my PlayQueue as you can see at >> this link. << 

Each Spotify user has different detailed requirements, I guess-- My friends have developed rather-easy "working solutions" for the following-- If you have any problem making some version of that WorkingPrototype work for you, just ask on this thread!

* Preventing repeats across all combined mobile devices and workstation play
* Getting 90K tracks in and out of the WorkingPrototypes to make Spotify work right
* Adding all of the tracks of a particular Artist to your Collection and quickly removing the "duplicate" performances . . . .

Just ask on this thread!