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.

[zazz]

Shuffle on the app (both Android and iOS) doesn't shuffle at all It repeats songs from a few albums over and over. Desktop app is better, but far from good. I've updated the app many times, to no avail. This has gotten much worse recently, and is especially bad when connected to Android Auto, I seem to have only about 100 songs  when it's connected. (I have 3,469) For a paid app, this is unacceptable.

[Sannie747]

Thx for your answer. I'll find it also onacceptabel. Ik have more than 1000
songs and I have to listen in in order how I downloaded thé song. Example
50 of more songs from thé same person and not others between because I
downlauded them like that. Do you know what I Mean. Ik like to listen to al
my songs in shuffle way and not 50 or more songs from thé same singer

[gusitamundial]

I love to listen to my music and be surprised by old songs I didn't remember. The current shuffle bottom does not do a "random" mix. It even sometimes repeat songs.

Spoiler

[AFlockOfDogs]

Shuffle on Spotify is awful. At first I thought I may be imagining things, so I started keeping track of all songs played. Every time I log on and begin a session at work or at home, it plays, on average, more than half of the songs played yesterday out of a 50 song sample, every 50 songs. I have almost 2000 songs. Song weighting appears to be based on recently added, which makes sense I guess, but also on other songs added in the same time period. In other words, if you log on and hit shuffle, you have an absurdly high chance, 100% in most of my tests, of getting one of the last 150 songs added, and if you force it to shuffle from a song later than that, it will simply play songs from that time period instead, usually by simply skipping down a few songs. Meaning, the only way to get a truly random experience, is to remove all of your music or add it all to a playlist every single time you listen. Which is absurd.

It also heavily favors songs from the same artist, and EXTREMELY heavily favors songs that are older than the song just played, up to the limit somewhere around the 150 song mark. Why? That is such an awful system, it's not even random it's just in a different order, but the same order every time so you just re-hear songs.

The algorithm should not favor playing the same songs constantly, if I wanted that I would use the radio, and it certainly should not favor as heavily as spotify does.

If this is a feature people want, it should be able to be toggled off, for people who actually want a variety of music. If Spotify just sucks at math, I could design a better algorithm for them in 5 minutes or so.

[teollo]

@bytebodger

sorry, I think I wrote you in the wrong post.

I tried your extension again and got this message:

thanks!!

this is the error I get

int(413)

object(stdClass)#6 (2) { ["error"]=> string(13) "invalid_grant" ["error_description"]=> string(26) "Invalid authorization code" }

is there something I can do to use your extension?

thanks for your time and patience

[Sevarate]

I'm so tired of shuffling and having to listen to the same 3 artists

[markcastillo]

It still plays the same songs over and over. Seems to want to play radio hits more. Some songs I never hear.

[Shinigami268]

I just had the same 8 tracks of a 330 song playlist play for the last 2 hours, is there anyway you can shut off an intelligent shuffle. And just rng it. 

The shuffle isnt too bad with 100 tracks of same type/genre/bmp/sound but on an wver changing llaylist with multiple styles and speeds it is pretty broken using around 30 to 40 tracks only

[user-removed]

The shuffle play doesn't update frequently. When I add a songs to my library, they don't play until maybe three days after I've added them. The same is for songs I've removed being that they keep on playing. I can only fix it by reinstalling the app.

[Mrbagels2]

Same comment as everyone else.  Just let it do a regular randomized shuffle.  It's ridiculous that it can't and will have me dropping my subscription if it can't be fixed.  That's a major function.  Does anyone know if Google Play or the new Pandora service is any better at this?