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.

[gungajim]

I am traveling in remote places and playing my playlist of 1000 songs into alphabetical order by song name. This achieves something close to a random shuffle. Only drawback is that for some of my favorite songs, I have multiple versions by different artists. Thus, I have to listen to 2, 3 or 4 versions back to back. Otherwise pretty random.

[wk-_nad73smi]

Replying by email so I hope this works - To Roadie, yes to both questions.
It's irritating. I want to be able to shuffle my entire library without
needing to create an entirely different playlist with all of my songs in
it.

[rednblu]

     >> I want to be able to shuffle play my entire library-- and play all the songs in my library before repeating any song. <<

I completely agree.

Shuffle playing without repeats is so important to me that I developed a "user programming fix" to do that-- using an Excel spreadsheet that I shuffle and then copy the top 9K tracks to a playlist.

[PennySpeaks]

​How do you export your song list into Excel to reorder?

​

[midwestcomix]

Yeah I just wanna shuffle my library. I migrated fromnRhapsody because the UI was worse- but Spotify has been stripping the app of functionality, like being able to shuffle or play in order playlist folders. Shuffling my Spotify library right now results in one of 4 things: playing the 100 (roughly) latest or earliest tracks in my library, or helpfully, I can choose to shuffle omgs with track names that begin or end the alphabet. God forbid I wanna listen to a song I added an intermediate time ago or that starts with the letter "P" or "K".

[rednblu]

    >> How do you export your song list [to shuffle it]?

For Windows 10 and the current Spotify player 1.0.84.344, as an example . . . .

I suggest you try first a >> simpleTextRandomizer << by the following.

* In the Spotify player-- [Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C] in the playlist that you want to shuffle.

* In the simpleTextRandomizer-- [Ctrl-V, Click RandomizeLines, Click the YellowButton that gives you the hoverText of "Copy to Clipboard"] to get the randomized tracks into the Windows clipboard.

* In a NewPlaylist in the Spotify player-- [Ctrl-V] to paste the randomized tracks into the NewPlaylist.

* Then you play the randomized tracks straight through with the Spotify Shuffle turned Off.

* If you cut the top 15 tracks-- for about one hour of play-- to a tempForMobile playlist, you will make sure that you will not repeat the tracks on your desktop that you have queued for your mobile.

[PennySpeaks]

​Thanks; you're much more helpful than Spotify itself is being 🙂

​

[akh0_f7-ocdbf]

The shuffle function is still broken. After working fine for a while, if I decide to skip a song, everything after that is a song from an artist starting with the same letter as whatever last played. Even toggling on and off the shuffle everytime it generates a "random" queue of songs, it will be 3-5 artists all beginning with the same letter of whatever the artist was of the current song that is playing is. Over and over I have tested this and I keep getting the same results. Out of a playlist of nearly 10,000 songs, with hundreds of artists, from A-Z it should not be doing that. The only thing that fixes it is to stop using the service for a while and waiting for 20 minutes or so before trying to play again. 

[eccentricgamer]

I am so sick of the shuffle grouping artists. I have a 100 song playlist made up of 4 different artists, and I go in and bam the first 20 are all from one artist, except some random intervals, then the next 20 are all from another ect. Just give us a shuffle with no fancy algorithms or anything, just an actual completly random shuffle.

[PennySpeaks]

I've been having this same conversation for 2 years now... still happens
everyday. pretty **bleep** frustrating to be stuck in this echo chamber of
annoyed users. ​