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.

[longleigh]

how long will this take?? i jog regularly, and am getting bored..

[Obiwanjabroni]

I have over 600 songs in my playlist. I always put shuffle play on that playlist. In shuffle mode, Spotify will only play about 40-50 of those songs. Never any of the new additions I made to the playlist. I do have premium. I add at least 4-5 new songs on average every week and delete some of the older songs that never get played. The new shuffle mode is still iffy. 

[PennySpeaks]

Indeed... my playlists have 3-4k each and they only play the most recent
additions.... until I hit forward/skip a couple dozen times. Then it seems
to get that out of the system and starts being more random...

[Tinkers84]

We're all just commenting into the void... 

[brandynhazelton]

So true... I don't  get why i was referred to this forum.  Spotify seems to think its implemented. Take the entire playlist and shuffle, not a piece of it. 

-B

[edwkissue]

I have a 996 song playlist sorted by artist, alphabetical. If I shuffle this playlist, it only chooses songs with from artists starting with A or B (about the first 100 songs). 

As a test, I cut the playlist down to 400 songs - even at only 400 songs, the shuffle is still only choosing songs from the first 100 artists. 

I've tried closing and restarting the app, I've tried giving the playlist a few hours in case any processing had to be done back-end - none of this has changed the behaviour, however I have noticed that it seems to be related to a bug in Spotify Connect.

If I close the app on my phone, and then restart the app, I can shuffle through the entire range of the playlist. However, as soon as I connect to a Sonos, the shuffle "reshuffles", and once again is only A&B artists. From that point out, even if I disconnect from other devices, the shuffle only selects from the first 100 or so songs. To get it to shuffle through the full playlist again, I have to be playing something different entirely, then close the app entirely, and then when I reopen it (as long as I don't use Spotify Connect) it will shuffle properly. If I use Spotify Connect again, it goes back to the only choosing from the first hundred-ish songs. 

[Toshi_akea]

I always listen the same songs. Sorry, but is not improved the random.

Please, put a Shuffle button.

[Miac218]

Recently I've noticed that when I shuffle my playlists, it tends to play songs from the same artist several times in a row when there are plenty of other artists in my playlist. I've waited until to make sure this wasn't a coincidence, and held off from asking about this until this happened too many times to be chance. Friends have also told me they noticed this recently. I wanted to know if Spotify changed their shuffle algorithm and if they could change it back to an actual random shuffle. If I wanted to listen to the same artist over and over again I would simply shuffle that artist. Thanks.

[erikarthur]

Shuffle has improved some, however there are a lot of songs that still get repeated too much and many that never get played!! 

[wayfaringrob]

I have a playlist of all Lady Gaga, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, Marina and the Diamonds, and Harry Styles. When I shuffle, it either plays just the Lady Gaga songs shuffled, or the other four artists' songs shuffled. This is annoying.