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.

[dexteritee]

@Tobraham

That's the thing we aren't "desiring more", at least I'm not. I want the shuffle fixed. Big difference. And what do you mean you're working on an app? Do you work for spotify? 

[Tobraham]

@dexteriteeI don't work for Spotify but I am writing a web-based application using the tools Spotify makes publicly available to developers who want to build applications that interface with Spotify.

In Spotify's defense, computers can't do 'random' very well. I've written shuffle apps for other music applications in the past (as far back as 2005) because 'random' just isn't random and it bugged the crap out of me. When I saw that users here had the same issues I did with my music not being random enough, I dusted off the shuffle archives and started working on it again.

[dexteritee]

@Tobraham This makes much more sense now, thanks for clarifying! 

[dexteritee]

@Tobraham And thanks for working on this! 

[rednblu]

I applaud everyone participating in this discussion-- particularly @Tobraham-- and even his detractors.  (I laugh.)  I am interested because all of you give me ideas on how to improve my "programming fixes" that give me just what I want from playing Spotify's top-notch music library.  But most of all, thank you, @Tobraham!

Spotify will never do this-- We have to do it ourselves-- You know why, right?

I am "neutral" on all of this.

I just look at the >> "results" of playing either my randomized playlists or my randomized "Radio"-- << As you can see in any 2,000 play sample, the only "track repeats" I get are the tracks that I purposefully insert to the top of my Queue, because then I say to myself "I don't care whether I have heard this track in the last 2,000 plays-- I want to hear it now!-- and I do.

As far as I have measured, the Spotify computers are incompetent and fail at the following two basic requirements of what I mean by "random".

To be satisfactory, the Spotify "random play" must at least always do the following.

* Play every track in a playlist or "Radio" queue before playing any track that has already been played in the last 2.000 plays.

* Never play any "track repeat" in any 2,000 track sequence so that I am upset with an unexpected "Dammit I just heard that song".  The reason that this "requirement" is independent of the first is that Spotify uses a different UniqueId for the same performance by the same artist if that performance is on a different CD.  (laughing)  Do you know how many hundreds of "Eleanor Rigby" performance repeats  this second "requirement" eliminates that the first "requirement" allows!

I have no problems whatsoever in getting my simple Vista Windows computers to perform the above satisfactory "randomize" in Windows Excel-- by sorting on the =RANDOM( ) function-- and by using five different available Web sites with "programming fix" enhancements.

And I learned all of these "programming fixes" by reading your reasonings, complaints, and problem-statements here-- So thanks and thanks!

[Tobraham]

@rednblu

OK, I have just perfected the art of dumping every one of your Spotify songs into a database and creating a new playlist that is 240 hours long, or enough for 8 hours a day of listening for 30 days.

At that point, your database remains on my server with the exiting song weights INTACT, so that if you were to log back on in 30 days, you could generate a new playlist off of the same database and still not hear the songs that were added to the first playlist created. In other words, we have a persistent scoring system.

Here's how it works. 

1) gather all of your songs and drop them into my database.

2) all songs start with a score of 0.
2) count how many songs there are in the database. (Example 5000 songs)

3) choose a song at random from the song(s) with the lowest score.

4) update the score of the song selected by the number of songs in your database. In this case, if I play Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up", that song's score will go from 0 to 5000, and any other songs by Rick Astley will also go up by some amount that I have calculated (based on a special algorithm) so that you don't havet he same artist played twice in a row.

So now that song will have the highest score of all songs in the database and won't be able to play agai until it becomes the lowest score. Every other song's score is 0 right now.

5) Drop all songs' scores by 1. After playing 4999 other songs, "Never Give You Up" will finally have a score of 0 and be able to be played again.

Since the scores will never reset, the next time you come back to build another 240-hour playlist, the song scores will be right where you left them.

It all works perfectly, but its ugly to look at, so right now I'm working on tidying up the pages' HTML.

Give me a few days and I'll have something you can test.

[laoandretj]

That's good work, man. Thanks for the effort of programming and explaining the concept. It is nice to see some transparency around here. .

Keep it up, I will try it for sure.

[rednblu]

Great everybody!  Thanks, @Tobraham!  Your "design" if very helpful, I think.

I tried again to "transplant" this discussion >> to a forum << that has adequate *edit functionality and *"feedback" buttons.

Please tell us your thoughts in either place.

If the "censors" eradicate the link above, i cannot change the link-- because my "edit" capability has been "disabled" on this thread.

(Let us all laugh together.)

[CarrioTine]

So I was told to post here by a spotify person on twitter about my recent problem with the shuffle. It used to do very well with making sure I had a good experience where I could listen to without repetition- but now, after their recent update, it instead goes well for a few songs and then suddenly starts the same exact song list over again! I'm not talking like hours of listening, I'm talking an hour of listening tops. This is VERY annoying!

[909hemi]

I too was pointed here by Spotify via twitter. I did read the last 2 pages, I appreciate everyone's effofts but really this is something that Spotify needs to blanket fix for all it's users thru an update. I'm a premium user and I won't put up with this nonesense much longer... it's gone on for years!