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[All Platforms] Option to have a true shuffle

So I’ve been noticing more and more recently that Spotify’s default shuffle feature doesn’t fully shuffle your songs. It does some sort of grouping to try to get similar songs together based off of what I’m sure is dozens of factors. Every time I shuffle a playlist (the one I noticed this with the most is ~100 songs and 6 hours of mostly full albums) it will group the songs mostly or completely together by album/artist, and given the number of times I’ve re-shuffled and checked the order there’s no way it’s just a coincidence. They also generally seem to be in the same order as well. If I hit shuffle play on a playlist it’ll generally put the same artists at the beginning every time.

 

With larger playlists of albums I am really not a fan of this shuffling method. If I have 6 hours of music on a playlist I will hardly ever have 6 hours to actually listen through the whole thing, but when I do listen to it I would like to hear all of the music on it equally, and not just the artist or two your algorithm likes to shuffle to first.

 

Anyways, I’m a reasonable man, all I’m asking for is an option to have a true shuffle (take all songs in the list, put them in a random order, and once they’re all played reshuffle them and play them again). Make it premium only if you want. I don’t think you should scrap the current shuffle algorithm because it sucks. Looking at some of the suggestions on here it seems like some people lobbied hard to have it that way. Just add an option for a true shuffle for those of us that don’t care about potentially getting the same song twice in a row.

Updated on 2021-09-14

Hey everyone,

 

Thanks for your votes and for bringing us your feedback in the Spotify Idea Exchange.

 

As this idea has gathered a fair amount of votes, we've discussed it with the relevant team once again. We actually want to take a closer look at what you're experiencing and get some of you in touch with our devs.

 

@jonathanleyerle- since you initiated the thread it would be great if we can have you on board.

@j4m1eb, @PrestonSale@decker12@jules99- what you mention is particularly interesting, so we'd like to have you on board as well.

 

We'll send you more info via Community PM, so please make sure they're enabled in your Community settings.

 

If anyone else is interested in participating, please let us know in this thread. We'll reach out to you, should we need more folks.

 

Thanks!

Comments
mojodrone

...Yet again, frustratingly and predictably, this morning Spotify had decided that out of 600 songs that I really like, it will play me all the tracks that it 'randomly' chose and played me YESTERDAY.  Because, I must really like those and want to hear them, over and over and over and over an over.....so I turned off Spotify.

jonathanleyerle

20 votes to go. Excited for the “Sorry, not right now.” response from Spotify.

teollo

we'll keep on dreaming, because we are dreamers,,,,,,

 

in the meantime:

https://spotifyshuffler.com/

ScoobyKitesurf

So another Windows Desktop update drops in and it still can't shuffle play the songs. Ho Hum...
Then there's the "Connect With Facebook" column taking 1/5 of the window, talk about shoving (r@p down down your throats!

guotaviano

Boa tarde

 

Acho o modo random de vocês bem ruim, sempre repete as mesmas músicas. Eu gostaria de algo que tocasse aleatoriamente mesmo.

 

Espero que melhorem isso. Obrigado

(Use google tradutor, portuguêse BR)

vivicus

I add my vote for this measure! I noticed as well that Shuffle seems to favor songs that I played a lot, which technically will get worse every time it replays them. On a big playlist with thousands of songs in it, it feels like half of them seldom or never get played, which is a big problem cause I made that playlist to discover new stuff. Please please pretty please, add a True Shuffle feature! Thanks a lot!!!

decker12

It's trash, it really is. My wife's Spotify playlist with 150 songs on it had 3 TLC songs, 3 George Michael songs, and 5 Huey Lewis songs.

 

Yesterday she had this new playlist on for an hour, and it played 15 songs. It played TWO Huey Lewis song in a row, and then TLC TWICE in a row. Can you imagine the odds of that? It was so stupid she thought shuffle play was turned off.

 

It also squeezed in all 3 George Michael songs in the other times it wasn't playing Huey Lewis or TLC.

 

It's ridiculous at this point.

heraschanka

Now

Does anyone accidentally know if the Shuffle is truly random on Apple Music? Or any other larger music platform?

algorithm_guy

This amuses me .. I discussed on a Topcoder forum cerca 2006 implementing crypto-random numbers for shuffling with a Spotify engineer when they were just using old school modulus rand()

 

Why won't they do it? I think that's clear - but you have to stop thinking like an engineer and think like an exec for a second.

 

I think the problem is that some people like (or rather it is the company's perception that some people like) the "smart" shuffle feature.  As a software engineer (including someone who has made music players) I can say with a high degree of confidence, that a non-random "random" feature doesn't just accidentally appear.   I first remember a setting in Winamp asking "how random do you want shuffle to be" around 2002, indicating that whoever was implementing these features had a radically different take on randomness than I did.

 

Perhaps we would generate more traction recommending a way to turn off "smart shuffle" - then it could be marketed as a feature rather than a defect.  (I mean, for us, "off" would be the feature we would want, but other users would perceive turning it on as a new feature.)

 

I typically use shuffle in my playlists, but if it really is hiding songs from me, I need to be a little more mindful of how I use the clients.  

rozeboosje

Really. It shouldn't have to take hundreds of users begging you for years to implement an option that would take me 5 minutes to code in a .NET Framework language. By all means, keep it the way it currently is for users of your "free" users, but it really isn't too much to ask for a paying premium user to get the option to play all 1000 songs in a play list in an order that's as close to "truly" random as one could reasonably expect from software. Pretty please. With a cherry on top.