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.

[agl89xs20]

I've waded in on this a couple of times before, but recently I've been listening to a playlist I've created that is smaller than some others but is still circa 85 songs.

The last 2 weeks straight I've had it on in my car and every single day, without fail, it's played an identical sequence of the same 7 songs on my way to work every day.

This is honestly absolute **bleep**, how can every other company in the world produce a working shuffle function but Spotify can't when they have millions of subscribers?

I cancelled my premium subscription a good while ago now and won't pay again until this is fixed. Only that is stopping me moving to another one is the thought of having to recreate all my playlists...

[3mon]

You know what the sad thing is? Spotify knows this,that they have us by the **bleep** by being unable to export playlists. But dear Spotify, there is a break point between lazyness and straight anger. If this sheit isnt fixed asap i will get another service and painstakingly recreate my plists.

I am sick of issues like this getting lost in your arbitrary, senseless sprint based release train. I dont know how the **bleep** you plan your sprints, but you break more things that you fix, and BASIC things like this are overlooked. FFS this is called technical debt and you should tackle it asap.... unleas of course, as we are saying, you do not want to.

[Jalvb73]

No you are not. I have read a lot of complaints about this non feature. What I really don't know is does Spotify reed all this. I don't think so...

[kpwiebe]

Relatively new user (< 6 months).  Subscribed to Premium after trying virtually all the other services.  Disappointed to find that Shuffle is pretty much useless in my carefully-constructed Playlists.  Seriously detracts from enjoyment and makes me question the money I'm paying to Spotify.  Then to add insult to injury, google reveals this problem has been going on for years and the web is littered with complaints. It's ironic that one of the top web music services is apparently deaf.

[LeoJLeBrut]

I might be repeating myself, but I'm speaking now as a long-time software development professional: when implementing randomization it is: 1) easy to produce code that is poorly effective, 2) only a little more difficult to produce one that is very effective, and 3) incredibly difficult to produce one that is perfectly randomized. All of this is incredibly well-known but Spotify is currently in category #1. What I cannot reconcile is if this is due to lack of attention/skill or there is something intentional about the implementation. Listening today, I started to think "The Sadies (a band) are maybe paying Spotify for airplay" because, man,I sure hear a lot of The Sadies. (and yes, I've got a lot of their songs in my 2000+ song library but =not= that many).

[3mon]

Exactly my thoughts about airplay. And its pretty sad they are peddling like that, specially to premiums. If i pay i dont want you meddling in what i listen to in any fkin way...

[kneipe2]

@LeoJLeBrut hilarious that you're talking about repeating yourself on a thread about a "randomizer" that does just that. Bravo. 😉 Also, it's nice to have a software developer chime in (I code, but not for software like spotify). Have you considered looking at the open-source version of spotify to see what their randomizer looks like? That's only my list of things to do but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[rednblu]

Oh I want everyone to be able to ShufflePlay any Spotify playlist without ever a single repeat until each and every track in the playlist has played!

Why can't you just do your own "programming fix", my friends?
@kneipe2

@3mon

@LeoJLeBrut

How about this?--

* Ctrl-A in your Spotify playlist.

* Drag your SelectAll to a BrowserScreen input box.

* Click Shuffle in the BrowserScreen.

* Ctrl-A in the shuffledOutBox of the BrowserScreen.

* Drag the "selection" to your empty Spotify ShuffledPlaylist.

* Turn off your SpotifyShuffle-- Someone work out the instructions for that.

* Make sure your SpotifyShuffle is OFF-- How can you be sure that your SpotifyShuffle is completely OFF-- and NEVER comes on again-- ever?  (I laugh.)

* Play your ShuffledPlaylist from the top.

* Occasionally, click on the LowerRightCorner of the album art of the CurrentlyPlaying track-- This will highlight the currently playing track in your ShuffledPlaylist-- Now Delete all tracks above the currently playing track-- By 1) Click on the Track name of the track above the highlighted currentlyPlayingTrack, 2) Shift-Home to select all tracks above the highlighted currentlyPlayingTrack, 3) Delete key on your keyboard. -- This deletionStep prevents you from playing anything that you already played, even if you restart your ShuffledPlaylist, right?

I have automated many of the above steps for myself, when that saves me time-- You can do that too-- Spotify cannot do this-- Obviously-- Spotify cannot. We users have to make our own "programming fixes" here-- just like we do with our buggy Word software, right?-- Either with macros-- or with "programmed manual keystrokes", right?

As you can see from the label on the BrowserTab of this thread, this problem has been "Solved"-- And the Solution is that the users have to make their own "programming fix" for this lethal bug in All Spotify players!

Here are my >> last.fm statistics << on Spotify play.  You can do the same and never get an unwanted "repeat". You can see that I never get a repeat on any playlist that I play-- until I have played each and every track in that playlist. But as you can see once in a while, I deliberately put a few "repeats" on my PlayQueue-- because I want that.

Cheers, and prevent every unwanted "repeat" from ever ruining your Spotify experience!

...

[kneipe2]

@rednblu please go back and reread what I wrote about not having the time to do it myself yet (I have a job, family, and other commitments that take priority). The main complaint is that the spotify team is providing a product that they want people to pay for, yet they are unable/unwilling to even live up to a modicum of what people want that product to be. As such, I've found Pandora to be a much easier solution.

[rednblu]

Well said, @kneipe2 . . . . !!

Do you have time to 1) drag your Spotify playlist to a BrowserWindow, 2) click a BrowserButton, then 3) drag your TrulyShuffled playlist  back to an empty Spotify playlist?

I am tabulating PollData.

Thanks.