[All Platforms] Option to have a true shuffle

[jonathanleyerle]

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.

[decker12]

I mentioned in an earlier comment that they could actively market this as a feature in their client. Something like "Keep the party going with Smart Shuffle! We'll shuffle your songs in an order that plays your favorite music, keeping the mood going, one after another!" and the other side of the slider "No thank, I want a truly randomized shuffle". 

But nope. This feature and these comments, just like every time it comes up over the past few years, will reach 700 votes and Spotify will pop in, with a 1 line comment that says "We're not going to implement this", and then close the whole comment thread that we're typing in right now. Then someone else will make ANOTHER thread with 0 upvotes for Truly Randomized Shuffle and we'll do it all over again.

There are so many shuffle threads on the Spotify subreddit - and have been for YEARS - that they're almost instantly downvoted and mods close them because it's such a common complaint and nothing has been done about it. I expect that to happen here on this forum as well.

When there are third party websites developed which are asking for the API key to get into YOUR personal Spotify login JUST to reshuffle your playlist for you, that should be the sign that hey, maybe your shuffle play really sucks and you should fix it. Again, nope, not happening, just let us all screw around complaining about it nope.

[anotherhead]

Spotify, this shuffle you are implementing SUCKS.  Please change it, THANKS!

[danisuar3z]

Please make this happen. It would change drastically how I like/use the app.

[nouben]

Please do it.

[ll_ug-5qcu0xc]

So, now that this idea has gotten the necessary votes which I believe is 500+ votes within 18 months, will this get any attention from Spotify staff and the idea status change? 

[decker12]

The only attention it will get is that Spotify will see that it has the proper amount of votes, ignore these 8 pages of comments, and simply say, "We have no plans to implement this."

Then they'll lock or delete this thread, and a month later, someone will make a new one complaining about the shuffle play. A few months later that thread will reach 500 votes, and the same thing will happen.

It's been like this for years. This upvote system is mostly here to make us customers feel like we have a say in the product, but in the end Spotify doesn't really take these things seriously. 

[ScoobyKitesurf]

Come on Spotify you have so many paying customers wanting a REALLY random shuffle. Don't dismiss this a not required.

[OdayDolphin]

A truly random shuffle option would be wonderful, I have long playlists but often can only listen for an hour or so. I would like that hour to be (mostly) different each time.

[StaticSpine]

Please do this. I'm really tired of listening to the same "shuffled" songs on my playlists.

[Jacob]

Updated on 2021-05-20

Your suggestion has at least 180 votes! Keep gathering votes. If this idea gets enough votes, Spotify will check it out and post a status update. You can read more about the idea process here.