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.

[tommylynnlovell]

After posting a comment, I noticed this thread has 143 PAGES of comments. Hmmmmm.

[Axlite]

Hmm... It does seem the letters being typed here are waste of energy, but since I'm here, I might as well add my request to make the shuffle better. My observations with my own >3000 song playlist are along the lines with those of tommylynnlovell.

[JaayClare]

So I was playing my Starred playlist yesterday with around 450 songs on it, with all different genres, and luckily I got 3-4 songs in a row that were of the same style and it felt like amazing luck! It gave me an idea...

What if the app could learn how long a song was listened to in the playlist before it was skipped to the next random song, and then based on the duration of each song listened to it could que a song to play next that is a similar style. So for example, you could be skipping through 10-20 songs, until you find a song you finally like, the app acknowledges that you have listened to the whole song, so automatically plays a song of the same genre next!

I think this would be great as an option for the starred playlist, I quite often mindlessly skip through playlists that have songs of multiple genres within, it would be awesome if Spotify could recognise the particular genre of music that we like at that very moment, and then tailor the music around this!

[jburkowski]

When you press shuffle it generates a random order and not the exact same order every time.

[12144739839]

Your shuffle is still not good. I keep listening to the same songs over and over again. My playlist gas 500 songs, and I listen to the same songs in a period of 2-3 hours. So annoying!

[cp_aries]

Wow, 143 pages of deatailed comments, concerns and complaints dating back several years, (myself being a contributor to said comments in this thread.) This (unresolved shuffle)issue is going to result in the inevitable.  Premium members like me forever abandoning this service and using another.

I wanted to thank everyone like me who contributed your concerns as it is nice to know that clearly we the customer have voiced our concerns and yet they have fallen on deaf ears.  

Spotify you have been officially replaced with Google music.  I now spend $2.00 less a month and have a far better service with FREE YouTube Red (commercial-free) service included.  

This decision was a no-brainer (for me) as I have now more access to more music and if a particular song is not available through their streaming service, it instantly pulls it off YouTube Red and streams it.  

Side note, Google Music also has far better customer support that seems to care about what their customers say.

[AdamDo]

So long spotify. Moving to google as well as now they have family subscription and nothing to complain on their apps... good bye!

[byce]

So let's talk about the play / repeat / repeat one / shuffle options in the most recent updates to Spotify (as of writing this 1.0.66.478.g1296534d). Recently a feature (or regression ... depending on your intent) has been introduced to disable the repeat one option upon selecting any other track. This seems counter intuitive since it's not how any other media device works. If I select a track to play I expect the following to happen:

• No options selected should play the current playlist until there are no more tracks to play, and then stop. Believe it or not, this is a desired piece of functionality. For example, if I'm listening to a particular Beatles album, I do not necessarily want to start another immediately once it's complete.
• Shuffle should shuffle tracks. If the last track in a set completes, it should cease to play unless the repeat option is selected. This behavior is relatively uniform across devices, and should remain that way.
• Repeat should reset the index of a playlist to 0, and then continue playback.
• Repeat one should repeat a single track without bound. When I click on another track, this does not mean that I want to reset my media player options. They are truly orthogonal concerns.

I have been a fan of the product that Spotify produces for a long time, but please take greater care to ensure that the basic features of how we all listen to music are not diminished as you continue to add new and more advanced functionality. If anything, from a product point of view, I would argue that the basic features of media playback are even more important as you grow.

[11arius]

Hi

I have a playlist I call Favorits wher I add, well, favorits. I then try to play this with shuffel, I find that each time I stop and start playing from this list, it picks the same song first (the shuffel is always the same). So when I add new songs to the list, they vewer gets played.

/\/\arius

[moomin_troll]

I have a large number of songs in my main playlist but shuffle only seems to select from those most recently added. Can you sort this out please because it's massively annoying!