[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.

[carlstorrie]

I guess this was never done as I hear the same songs over and over again which must in itself be a horrendous circle of repeating as it just adds to the plays and hence adds to its apparent popularity in my so called eyes and so then plays more and keeps going round. I'm sick of the Killers now because of you. 

[Bandrilem]

Please fix this. I am tired of hearing the same songs over and over in my large 1000+ song playlist. It’s ridiculous that the base shuffle function doesn’t operate this way.

[fraktalisman]

This topic has 100 pages of comments. Is this still considered a "good idea but not now"? Has it become relevant enough? Has Spotify given up? Do the deliberately ignore long-time power users?

[rozeboosje]

Yes they deliberately ignore their paying customers. I can't believe this still isn't obvious to some.

I think that Spotify do not want people to create large playlists. I suspect a small playlist with one or two dozen songs in it works just fine. All the complaints here are from people with large play lists.

Other providers DO respect it when their paying customers create large playlists.

Draw your own conclusion from that.

[sadastronaut]

I went to Apple Music a few months ago, but I still like to check back on this topic and see if it made any progress. I guess not. This has 100 pages of feedback. If Spotify doesn't implement this, what will they implement? This makes me think user feedback is essentially useless.

[rozeboosje]

"I still like to check back on this topic"

Same here. I moved to Amazon Music but I keep returning to this thread. It's like watching a train wreck and I just can't tear myself away from the spectacle.

[joe68w]

Come on Spotify. We need a true shuffle and I would prefer that it cycle through every song until it plays the same song again. One issue is when you play another station and come back the playlist you want to shuffle through it restarts the shuffle. Would love to see an option to restart from the last song played in that playlist and continue the shuffle from there. 

[armedzerox]

1. I think a true shuffle is important. The current shuffle option prioritizes the songs that Spotify perceives you enjoy the most, which is irrelevant. Because people who have over 1000 songs in a playlist probably the ones who quickly get bored with the same stuffs. Current shuffle will kill the enjoyment of listening to a music. True shuffle will make the music alive back again in our heads.

[Mookpsu]

Switch to Amazon Music. They let you hear what you want to hear, not what
they think you want to hear AKA what makes them the most money.

[Egregius]

Looks like I come to another problem, the 10000 songs in a playlist limit. Must think of a way to have my script devide the songs over multiple playlists.