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.

[Clauz]

I absolutely agree with this idea! Random play NEEDS to be improved in Spotify, since I guess it's the typical listening "mode" to most users! 😉

[OnyxPC10]

Seriously guys... why is your shuffle so awful? It's not that difficult to do, I'll even fix it for you if you give me access to your android app's code. Seriously... 5 minute fix.

[ConnorCG]

Shuffle is absolutely terrible.

If I create a small playlist, or search my playlist for something that gets 20 results and then shuffle those results, I'll likely get the same song 8/10 times. It makes shuffling all the tracks by an artist completely useless.

[Shades228]

Give us a real shuffle not the "random" that is there. I have over 4k songs in my work playlist so I can have diversity however the same constant songs always play and so it seems like it's always heavy on that type of music. 

[ConnorCG]

No but didn't you read their blog post? Spotify users are dumb and suffer from "Gambler's Fallacy" because they want a SHUFFLE feature, and not a **bleep**ty "random list of 50 songs" feature.

[ed_dome]

I understand gambler's fallacy, odds, etc, but I'm not gambling. I'm trying to listen to a music service without listening to the same songs over and over again. I agree with above, I know Spotify says they have improved this function, but I still don't understand why it keeps repeating songs in short periods of time. I operate in a room with multiple people, and the anesthesiologists routinely complain that they hear the same songs over and over. There is no reason for a 416 track playlist to repeat a track in the span of 2 hours - this is on an android device, Samsung Galaxy S4 (where my only option is shuffle, which is what I want, but I don't get shuffled tracks!).

[chnateag]

I saw someone said that he didn't remember that some of his songs was in his playlist, it's exactly that, i have 660 tracks in my playlist and there are some of them that i forgot and never listen... and some which enoys me now that i listened to them to much.

not cool ! like OnyxPC10 said, if we could make our own algorythm, we wouldn't complain ! of course it's not the solution but still, this is really, really enoying...

But are we even read by spotify team ? 

[Mr_Robbie]

2014 and still having this issue on my iphone it plays the same 20 songs and my playlist is or 200 songs

[Jabz]

Not much to add, just keeping this issue at the top.

1k5 songs playlist, hearing about 10-15% of it while on shuffle.

[ws1482]

Shuffle play is still not any better. I have a 320 song playlist and the same 30 or 35 songs play all the time and I barely hear the other 290. I've had to delete many songs from my playlist because I was hearing them everytime I would listen. Can we get this fixed already?