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.

[d0ktor]

Can someone please change the status of this idea? This "idea" is by far not implemented. Is it really so difficult to add an actual random feature? 

For developers please consult -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generation

[user-removed]

Hey Everybody, and Spotify! 

I had reads about how Spotify randomizer is working, and they had upgraded that. But it's still not too good. I have over 600 songs in my playlist, but from the last added 300-400 (I added in that year the most of) songs not even came up, always the same old music randomized again and again. I know it's perfect random, but that is what we not needed now. I think if one played song can be taked to something "list" to not play it until X% of the list not played. It's pretty annoying always jumping between the song and find "something new" and pretty uncomfortable. Maybe that's also a solution like Spotify collect the data of each songs how much times was played (miminum of the song  80%)  and do not overplay it, so make it balance...and maybe option to reset the counter. So who think it's will be better like this, and I ask Spotify programmers also, is it possible with some efforts? 

[Qlippoth]

I appreciate your concern, but what once was at least a semi-random shuffle is no longer. I've had guests at 3 different parties ask if I was secretly holding a "B"-themed party (Bowie, Bauhaus, B-52s, etc.) when "randomizing" a huge playlist. It smacks of "use our conveniently-available playlists instead of your own". I don't know that that's the case, but I'm having trouble understanding why it would be otherwise. People have liked the playlists that I've put together, but the prospect of manually shuffling them uncomfortably reminds me of myself in 1998 fighting with WinAmp. What's your excuse? (seeing as I pay you $10 a month)

[shovlin03]

Not much of an update...  as far as I can tell still a lot of same issues happening with songs getting repeated...  I have playlists as well with over 1000 songs but keep hearing the same 30 songs every time I shuffle...  please please please fix this. It has gone on for far too long and about to cancel my family plan out of frustration...  I have gone so far as to use a program created by a programmer friend that made a TRUE shuffle program to reorg my playlist so I can just listen straight through and not even have to use the shuffle feature...  but with new versions coming out makes difficult to maintain that program even...  the queue is not helpful if only shows such a little portion of your playlist. 

[rednblu]

"Thank you" to everyone here for your High quality suggestions, flawFindings, and failureReports of every Spotify shuffle-- I especially thank @shovlin03 for clarifying, specifically, the difficulties that my friends have in maintaining the "user programming fixes" that make Spotify useful at all compared to zero for us-- Compared to Pandora or . . . .

Without all of your High quality suggestions, flawFindings, and failureReports of the Spotify shuffle--  I would have zero hope of ever making Spotify work to play music.

But my friends have provided simple "user programming fixes" that work for me perfectly to get exactly the fantastic selection, DeDuplication, and trueShuffle that is necessary for, maybe, 1% of Spotify's paying customers-- I would guess that 1% from what everyone here has been saying for over six years!

Can you believe it?  (I laugh.)  And many thanks to all-- Keep up the good work, please-- and especially my many thanks to Spotify for keeping everything stable enough . . . .  The resilience of the Spotify backbone infrastructure is astounding and miraculous to me-- including the Spotify recovery processes, many automated, that recover Wow! from all of my friends' twisting and poking to fix the fatal flaws in how all Spotify players present music to us . . . .  Thanks . . .

[Grayw8080]

Hmmm, I think maybe keep taking the tablets my friend! 😉

[rednblu]

Yes.  You are absolutely right-- If you use the Spotify Shuffle, you always get option c.-- The Spotify Shuffle will never give you more than 100 tracks from your 2000 track playlist-- regardless of how long you leave the playlist playing-- You always get repeats of some 100 track subset-- Very disappointing-- I understand.

But there are other options for playing music on Spotify-- Find some Spotify users who Make public some perpetual and NonRepeating feed that contains the 2000 tracks that you like-- and play that instead of putting up with those infuriating repeats-- Spotify has no time and no resources to provide for us what we need as sophisticated users-- The Spotify users have to do it themselves-- That is the way that God made the universe-- Unless you buy Spotify and-- as legal owner-- make it right-- Give us a HeadsUp-- We will all cheer you!

Just a suggestion--

But thanks for your very useful diagnosis of the flaws and failures of the Spotify Shuffle-- and at the same time you suggest a very important requirement for a successful Player feed from any 2000 track playlist-- namely play all 2000 tracks before there is even one repeat of any of the 2000 tracks, right?

[Worldmind]

I've been getting daily emails on this whole things since I originally commented, and I've come to the decision to make a video on this subject, using your comments to highlight the idiocracy of the Spotify shuffle issue. stay tuned I'll post a link here when it's done. Maybe just Maybe if it garners enough public attention they'll actually do something about. or maybe not. either way it won't hurt to try. 

[rednblu]

Brilliant!

Thanks . . . .

[jonathan_smith]

The shuffle function picks a set number of songs grouped around whatever the first song played is. So in a playlist of 20 or 30 entire albums you are likely to only hear songs from 5 or 6 artists in a single iistening session. This is frustrating and doesn't give users who want to be able to truly shuffle an entire playlist are asking for.