[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.

[random_please]

I think the chance of hearing repeats is not a big deal (especially on large playlists). But Spotify is targeting songs to play under the current method - they have admitted this. When a song is targeted it then has a high chance of being targeted next time. This is how you get to the current situation where some songs are heard many times (to the point you want to delete them) and other songs are never or hardly ever heard.

[zx6dude]

Oh well, I wish you luck with this, but there's a over 4 year old "live" idea very similar to this one. Over 4 thousand votes, over 150 pages of comments and no action from Spotify:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Option-to-have-a-true-shuffle/idi-p/488059...

Spotify very clearly places profits and greed over customer service.

Personally, I've given up on Spotify ever fixing this - they haven't in years - and I no longer use them. 

[dank13]

I can't believe this is actually still a problem:
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Implemented-Ideas/Implement-an-actual-shuffle-function/idi-p/27607
Yesterday, I had a 5-hour car trip, and out of my 1793-song playlist, I heard the same songs twice.

I felt like it was shuffling only 30-odd songs on my playlist.
It's hard to understand how you can shuffle a thousand songs and still listen to the same song before all the rest of the 999 songs have played. How hard is it to do that?

Is Spotify getting paid by big record labels to play their songs???

[Mitchel]

This is my biggest complaint with Spotify. I don't like to binge music, I like variety. When I use shuffle I want to hear my liked songs that I haven't heard in months, not the same one I heard yesterday and the day before. Can't believe this has been open for so long!  Wouldn't be difficult to implement, and can still keep the current algorithms as a shuffle option for those who prefer it.

[tsnyder91]

How is this still a problem.

[rozeboosje]

"So close"

What are you waiting for? They ignored premium subscribers for at least 4 years now. Your comment is not going to sway them.

[Mookpsu]

What if he says "Please"?

[rozeboosje]

He didn't say "please"? Oh dear that's it he's ruined it for everyone now.

[zx6dude]

Pretty please with sugar on top? 

[jlesieur]

So here's the most recent update from Greedify, with my translation below: 

Updated on 2024-05-01

Hello everyone, 

Thank you for your continued engagement and valuable feedback on this idea. 

I'm afraid there hasn't been any change on the status of this idea since our last update. However, we've been reading all your comments and feedback which have been incredibly insightful. 

We’ll keep you folks posted as soon as we have any new info to share.

===============================

Here's my translation on what they're really saying:

Hello everyone, 

Wow, another year has gone by and you idiots keep coming here pretending we care about your threats of leaving. We're not going to fix this problem. If you can't see that, then by all means, keep buying us new beach houses, cars, and boats. Clearly you have plenty of money to burn on a product that doesn't do what you want, so we'll gladly take it.

We will update you again in a few years that nothing has changed. Enjoy, suckers. 

===================================

Doesn't that sound more accurate? 

It's actually pretty funny thinking about a group of their employees in a board room reading these comments and cracking up over a nice catered lunch. It probably boosts office moral. If I didn't despise companies like this so much, I'd move on. But because they suck donkey nuts, I'm going to copy and paste the following here as much as I can (I'd like to say daily, but I'm a realist).

"Dear new or old Spotify user who wants a true shuffle: Spotify will not fix this because it's not broken. It's a deliberate business decision by them to increase their revenue. By all means, stay with them if you don't care about throwing your money away. But if you like supporting companies who actual respect their customer-base, and if you want a streaming service that actually works, move on. Most platforms offer free trials; find one that you like. Here is the list I tried when leaving Spotify (all of them were a step up):

• Apple Music (I can't stand Apple as a company, much like Spotify, but if it works it works. I moved on because they treat their customers like a child and filter "naughty words" of song titles)
• Amazon Music
• Tidal (offers military veteran discount)
• YouTube Music (this is the one I ended up staying with). 

There are plenty of apps out there that will automatically move all your playlists from Spotify to whatever service you choose. The one I used charges a one-time fee, but you can use it as much as you want after that. I think it was only like $17. I used the app "FreeYourMusic". 

The only way to get **bleep** companies like Spotify to listen is to take your money elsewhere. The great part about that is then you'll have an actual shuffle, and will only come here to try to help other lost listeners.