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.

[Lpmann]

It is very annoying and upseting that this is the new shuffle algorithm. Please fix the shuffle setting please.

[anew23]

I’m getting Christmas songs. I only have artists selected at this time - about 8. 2 of the artists have done Christmas albums. Since I always shuffle songs from their albums pop up. This needs to be fixed. Never had this problem with Pandora. Christmas sounds should not be part of the shuffled songs January - October. Spotify needs to fix this flaw

[Sevarate]

I've noticed recently something really strange, I have a playlist devoted to the music and fan music of Life is Strange the game, and I also have a playlist deticated to all my music since I don't like using the "My Songs" tab, and now for some strange reason when I shuffle play in my all music playlist, it plays mainly songs from my Life is Strange playlist, which is super weird because all those songs aren't by the same artists its a mashup of many artists, but the all songs playlist is picking those songs out for some weird reason

[anew23]

Christmas music needs to taken out of shuffle -and actually out of all songs or artists - unless specifically chosen as a genre. Pandora and Apple Music does not have this problem. I’m getting ready to go back to one of them instead of upgrading to Spotify Premium. I hop this gets resolved soon

[TSmithRV]

I understand why there's an algorithmic shuffle, but why not just add an actual random shuffle so that people can still use the algorithm e.g. for artists (so that obscure B-sides don't come up as much), but the random shuffle for playlists?

[joshderickson]

We are now in 2018 and teh suffle for Spotify is still horrible.

Please can we get this fixed.

[jeffhpc1]

I've been directed to this thread (specifically to the notice of an update from 2 years ago) from multiple other "Ongoing Issue" threads in which a moderator has decided to change the status to "Not an Issue." Yes, it is an issue, and denying it doesn't solve the problem.

[stewart100]

Completely agreed. The same thing happened to me. They're deliberately
making it difficult.

[ap_seidel]

My biggest issue is that their current shuffle algorithm seems to put your most recently played songs at the end of the queue. Here is the problem I have been encountering:

I spent some time listening to songs of one genre, and then afterwards switched to a more mixed playlist of all of my favorite songs. I hit shuffle, and all of the songs that I was just listening to appear at the end of the queue. I would prefer to have them mixed in with the rest. I try reshuffling, and all the same songs are still mixed at the end of the queue, as well as the very first song that began playing with the previous shuffle. I was reliably able to produce this phenomenon every time for 10+ times, so it clearly wasn't some sort of bad luck.

I would appreciate a way to allow the shuffle function to forget your previous viewing history. I know people were complaining about shuffling and running into songs that they've already listened to recently, but just grouping all of the recent songs together at the end of the queue isn't much better.

[Ben_JM]

Still only playing the first 100-200 songs on a “shuffle” 

This is incredibly poor service. You should / need to do better.