[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.

[Undeterred]

https://spotifyshuffler.com

https://stevenaleong.com/tools/spotifyplaylistrandomizer

[rozeboosje]

I've said it before and I'll be happy to repeat it: If I pay for a service I would expect to get the most basic functionality "out of the box", NOT have to rely on 3rd party software that I would then have to trust with my credentials. Never gonna happen.

In the meantime, Spotify are axing 1500 jobs.

Perhaps if you gave your paying customers what they want you wouldn't be in this fix, Daniel Ek.

[rozeboosje]

I think the problem here is that Daniel Ek never realised that his business model changed. When he first created Spotify, he was only selling ONE product: An audience for his advertisers. Just like Facebook, Twitter and many social media platforms, the product is not the software you are consuming. "Free Music" was not Spotify's product. Spotify's product is YOUR ATTENTION.

So the business model was never "give the users what they want to hear". It's "play whatever keeps the users listening the longest, so that we can present them with as many ads as possible, which will make our customers (i.e. advertisers) happy."

Fast forward to when they introduced Spotify Premium.

Now they have TWO products they are selling. They are still selling "ears for advertisers" in their normal Spotify offering. But now they are also selling "Listening to music the way YOU want to listen to it" for those who are willing to pay for Spotify Premium.

And I suspect that Daniel Ek and his management team at Spotify are incapable of understanding that that second product needs to come with different criteria for what constitutes customer satisfaction. I don't think it has sunk in that Spotify Premium is a product for PAYING LISTENERS rather than PAYING ADVERTISERS.

Either that, or they have zero respect for this newer customer base.

[BrianGoldie]

It is not fit for purpose. I always play my Liked Songs in shuffle mode, but constantly hear the same songs playing over and over again, within a relatively short timescale (same day to several days) and there are songs that I have hardly heard at all. This is confirmed by your recent 2023 Wrapped information which shows the first song in my like songs as my most played. It has become my most hated song now! In shuffle mode all songs should have the same frequency of playing.

[alex_myrand]

This is really frustrating. I would mention that when turning on “Smart Shuffle” it plays exactly the same order every time, even after clearing the cache. Please make a true random shuffle, or at least an option in settings, it’s been too long for this issue to not have been resolved.

[jlesieur]

Everyone....you're going to have to let it go. Spotify will not change this because it doesn't make sense for them financially (see greed). Also, they've been laying off employees at an alarming rate.

You have to move on to another platform. Stop giving them your money.

[rozeboosje]

"You have to move on to another platform"

Did that ages ago. I'm just here with my bag of popcorn enjoying the show.

[MjBalls]

What platform did you go to? How do you like it?

[rozeboosje]

Amazon Music. It's grand. I don't even know how well or not their "shuffle" works as I never need it. I have a playlist with over 1000 songs in it, and when I reach the end I hit the option to "Randomize Playlist" and it then puts all the songs in a completely different order, and then I play it again from top to bottom over however many days it takes, a little bit at a time.

[jlesieur]

@MjBalls I've currently using YouTube Music and really like it, though I've only had it for a few weeks. Since leaving Spotify I've used Tidal, Amazon Music Unlimited, and Apple Music. I moved on from those three for differing reasons (my favorite of those three was Tidal, least liked was Amazon even though I despise Apple as a company). Also, for what it's worth I did not use the free version of any of those; all were paid versions.

At the end of the day, we as consumers need to stop giving these kinds of companies our money if we're not happy with them. Think of it this way; why would they give a **bleep** about changing anything if all we do is complain. Put your money where your mouth is and move on. Ultimately that's the only thing that truly hurts a business. Spotify doesn't deserve my money so I'm exploring options. 

Side note, all of the services I mentioned above offer free trials. Bounce between them all using the free trials and see what works for you. I use the app Free Your Music to transfer my playlists between services.

Good luck.