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.

[krabat]

Just made a new playlist with 10 albums on it. The first 6 songs were from the same two albums. I have an even larger playlist with 200 or so songs, and I hear the same songs quite often when using it. It's almost useless.

[alexlemmel]

I have a playlist with 188 songs and 13 artists. And what does my shuffle look like? See the attached picture. The next 10 songs to play are mostly from one artist.

I understand that shuffle is not random -- random means that among the 188 songs I have in this one playlist, one song is chosen, played, and put back in the pile of 188 songs to be selected again. Theoretically you could hear one song in twice in a row if true random was selected.

Therefore, it is evident that shuffle is an algorithm programmed by Spotify. I'd like to suggest that they program this to make it that every 10 songs cannot repeat an artist/album (when possible.) I'm sure I'm not the only person who finds it annoying when you hit shuffle on your playlist and then you hear the same album or artist for the next eight songs.

[Insidejupiter]

Ok Spotify it is 12/24/16 and the shuffle still blows. What the person says who started this article is exactly on point. It needs to really shuffle and take one song out at a time and never play that song again till the whole playlist has been gone through. Just like how an iPod shuffles. It's totally random and never plays the same song twice. The reason I got Spotify is because I was using another music app and it just plays the same 40 songs over and over I can't stand that. So I got Spotify so I could put tons of stuff on there and here all kinds of variety. Well that has gone out the window. I work from home and usually listen to hours of music everyday. I just put my whole library on shuffle so there is thousands of songs. But guess what I still here the same songs over and over. And also I notice your algorithm likes to play new songs that I have added recently or songs that I actually select to listen to alot. This is super annoying I add new stuff so I have more variety and then it ruins it by playing it all the time. Please fix this, maybe have shuffle options or something but all in all in the end make one that is 100% random and never plays the same song more than once. Please and thank you. That is all.

[tasso]

This is by far NOT IMPLEMENTED and I cannot possible understand how Spotify still insists to ignore 1500 of its thoughtful customers (who bother to give constructive feedback) for five years now.

Please give us a real shuffle function! A function that takes the song that's just been played out of the remaining list until the list is depleted. You are actually forcing us to take songs out of our playlists permanently...

Could you please take care of this? Rest assured that all your customers will be either pleased or oblivious about it.

[tasso]

I've also read some articles about this and I can understand the challenges Spotify is facing. I do believe however things got a bit lost in translation.

You see, mathematically randomizing can lead to any sequence of styles, including a sequence where similar songs appear next to each other, yet people would still be weird about it.

However, what we seriously need is a function that doesn't allow the same song being played again, unless the whole playlist has gone through... Unfortunately, Spotify isn't there yet. And this is actually simple.

I also see that, in fear of being not random enough, Spotify has actually managed to recognize when similar songs are put together and try to avoid it. In reality though, having songs of similar style (genre or tempo) being played next to each other could be a good thing. All that people want is to listen to every song in a 10 hour playlist, if that playlist is played for 10 hours and not having the same song appear again in 30minutes.

One way to do that, would be to have shuffling done only once at the beginning, instead of after every song, and then have the playlist go through sequentially. You could even provide an option to keep similar songs together while the shuffling is done, or have a bigger dispersal of style/genre/artist.

There's a lot of thought into this, so I'd appreciate you sending it to the tech team.

Merry Christmas, and thank you!

[rednblu]

Amen, @tasso!  I find much great value in what you write about "Having the shuffling done only once at the beginning".

Spoiler

(Pardon me, please.  I write this longHand here at this time-- because the brilliant reformers have Removed the Kudos and Like buttons-- So I write to give you, @tasso, both Kudos and Like.  (frown)  Has anyone discovered a user "programming fix" to give Kudos or Like for superior suggestions on this LongAndLong FiveYear plea for Spotify to Fix the Shuffle routine to work?-- Anyone?)

[Keurdis]

Hello , alors je ne sais pas exactement comment fonctionne l'algorithme de la lecture aléatoire de Spotify mais en théorie une musique ne doit pas repassé plusieurs fois tant que TOUTE les musiques sois passé , or sur ma playist d'environ 330 chansons , c'est toujours les mêmes chansons qui passe , ( environ une 50ene) , ça vaut le coup de faire des grande playist si 75% n'est jamais lu , si je quitterai le lecteur après chaque lecture je comprendrais que cela remet le compteur à 0 mais je fais juste une pause quitte l'application ce qui n'est pas censé reset les compteur ... Donc si le système pourrais être un peu revu , ça serais cool 🙂

[pbrownpb18]

What I am seeing is that in very large playlists, the same albums (5 - 10) get repeated. To repeat one of the earlier comments, I build big playlists to get a good variety of music. I have to remove albums from the playlist to get Spotify to stop playing them very often. This happened in the last few days with what should have been a great variety of Christmas music. Instead, I get 5 albums, which only change if I remove one.

I'm a new Premium user and am starting to doubt whether it's worth the monthly expense if I effectively can't use the seriously-flawed large playlist / shuffle feature.

Also this thread should NOT be marked as closed, as is apparent from the many comments since the last change was implemented in February. Premature closing of an issue looks great on the stats but leaves your customers unsatisfied and frustrated.

[garryjoz]

I nearly cancelled my subscription to Spotify premium over this issue - not so much tthe shuffle function itself, but Spotify's contemptuous attitude to its customers, clearly evident on this thread.

However I decided instead to simply avoid using the shuffle function altogether. I just display the playlist and click the play icon to the left of the song I wish to start with, then all the songs are played in order. If at some time I get bored with the song order I can log on with my PC and change the order. 

[rednblu]

I like it, @garryjoz!

• Since "they" took off both the Like button and the Kudos button from your post, I give you both as a prize.

To make the song order always interesting in my 78,925 track "Your Music", I do something very similar to your "log on with my PC and change the order".  And then of course, I avoid using the defective Spotify shuffle altogether-- as you suggest.

Spoiler

* Here is the >> DeDuplicating Page << that you taught me to use outside of Spotify-- DeDuplicating by Artist, TrackName-- even from different CDs.

* Here is the >> randomizingPage that you taught me to use outside of Spotify-- <<  So I get zero payola repeats from that fakeSpotifyShuffle-- Zero unasked repeats.