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.

[laoandretj]

Same problem here. Wondered about that just to find out that this is not a recent issue. And the update doesn't seem to work for me either. These kind of features are essential for the proper functioning of any playback software. Besides not giving us an equalizer for the desktop, this shuffle desaster is clearly the worst issue with spotify right now.

It also reveals the trend that spotify is more inclined to advance design and marketing instead of making sure to deliver an outstanding listening and playback experience. While the first is good for short-term revenue boosts the latter will increasingly drive away long term customers who have been loyal enough to wait for (re-)improvements. This patience does not seem to pay out. Sad story. Since the horrible v1 roll-out things went south dramatically.

[euthymios]

Definitely noticed a difference in the quallity of shuffle in February. Some uncannily great song pairs, trios, groups started coming up while shuffling, and I have to say I've been really impressed. Spotify's poor shuffle quality was a common talking point among my friends for a while but it has really turned around.

If I have a criticism it would be to have a little more transparency on how the algorithm works. That QZ article on the discover weekly algorithm gave me a lot of respect for that playlist, and made me interact with Spotify in a sligthly different way to optimize my Discover Weekly results. I would love a similar level of insight into the shuffle algorithm, and even some shuffle options (like shuffle, random, "magic" shuffle").

But yeah, main feedback is that you guys are wizards. One song will get me thinking about another song and then it will play next automatically. This has happened 3+ times. Keep up the great work!

[user-removed]

I completely disagree with the last post

[MovMou]

There is another issue with shuffle that everyone is overlooking (or perhaps are unaware of). I am one of those strange users who has a playlist of approx. 3250 songs.  Yes, I know that is a lot. Yes I know it will take me 10 days of non-stop playback to listen to all of them. Yes I like all of the songs in this playlist. 

Ok, now that we have that out of the way lets get down to what is actually broken with shuffle.

When you play a playlist in spotify and hit 'shuffle' it takes a set amount of songs EITHER SIDE of the song you selected and randomizes them. Lets think about why that's an issue in a large playlist:

I have my playlist sorted by artist (alphabetical order).

I hit shuffle play on a song by Fouls (whom I basically have their entire discography in this one playlist).

Spottify looks at say 30 songs either side of this one Fouls song, and randomizes that as my play queue...

So what I end up with is about 20 Fouls songs and a few songs by other artists that begin with 'F'.

This is utter crap and defeats the entire purpose of a large, diverse playlist.

If I wanted to shuffle foals songs, I would just go to their page and play from there. Why on earth would I want to listen to a 'slice' of my playlist shuffled (when the playlist on the whole is ordered) rather than my entire playlist shuffled?

Spotify needs to fix this ASAP as I can't be the only one infuriated by this experience. It's almost unuseable as it currently functions.

A good shuffle mechanic, much like the OP suggested is not hard to implement. I understand that on a 3000+ song playlist it will take a minute to actually shuffle all those songs into a play queue, but that is a minute I am willing to wait if it means I can actually listen to my songs shuffled, as the function suggests.

Cheers

[MovMou]

Oh just as a side note to my above post ---

I have an itunes library of over 8000 songs and I can shuffle that, THE ENTIRE LIBRARY, with no issues at all... 

[xchiseax]

 They need to rework the shuffle because Im having a major issue where I use the shuffle on the desktop player and it HAS TO PLAY THE SAME SONG RIGHT AFTER IT!! Its so annoying and agravating making me not want to use it at all. Its fine on the mobile app, but on the desktop its just aweful. this is how bad it does http://puu.sh/nDgFK/1fe3d2d84a.png   literally the exact same song over right after it played. And i know I dont have double songs on here. Ive tried so many times to get it to fix itself and no update or trying to take off and readd music helps. It always does it on the shuffle.

[dewhill]

What MouMov said is right. I hear the same 30 songs all the time out of a 500 song list. Not hard to program.

[sronis]

Same here - i have a playlist of 500+ songs and the shuffle plays only about 10% of them, and the same ones all the time. 

Honestly - getting very tired of this.

[mikeydangelo]

The shuffle functionality is still horrendous.  I spent hours putting together a playlist of over 500 songs that I like and could shuffle and listen to at work or in the car without having to pick something specific, but it still just plays the same handful of songs over and over and over.  Still.  After the update.  It's so awful.  I don't understand how a music app like this is still so bad at a very basic piece of functionality but it's incredibly frustrating.

[RockieRat]

Alright. It changed for a about a week and now I'm hearing the same tracks over and over again.