[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.

[ErdalAvasin]

I would like to vote, but it won't let me. I've had the same problem for some years. We would really appreciate if it would be changed for the better.

[Zajoncz13]

The problems with the current shuffle algorithm are numerous, but here's my top 2 worst offenders:

1.: If playback is stopped and some time passes before pressing play again (e.g. listening music in the car, getting out and getting back in later), the songs will be reshuffled even if I never closed Spotify on the phone. Knowing that the recent algorithm prefers some songs over others, this means that over a roadtrip we have to come across the favoured songs multiple times, while at the same time the songs that are hanging in the back of the list never have the chance of being heard. And since actually listening to a song influences the algorithm even more, that means it now thinks that we're REALLY into that 20 songs it tries to play us nonstop.

2.: The "seamless" shuffle is just dumb if a playlist is made by multiple people, as this ensures that somebody will almost never hear their songs if they listen to a genre that's in the minority in the playlist. Also, it's kind of extreme that this "seamless" function works not just with genres but with languages, too.

I can accept that some shuffle functions are buisness decisions, but as a paying customer I would very much prefer an option to have an alternative to the current one, one with more user control. Maybe even multiple options to tweak the shuffle performance to my liking. And no, smart shuffle doesn't count.

[avintegrator]

There are quite a few of us still subscribed to this thread (which goes back many years and 180 pages of comments expressing the same frustration) who gave up and moved on.  They could fix it easily and simply will not.

I searched high and low for something better.  Fact of the matter is that all of the services have strengths and weaknesses.  The weakness of the (lack of) shuffle here was enough reason to bail completely.  I don't need to pay to be frustrated by a music player.

Someone else in this thread suggested Deezer, and it's actually very good.  Again, some features (including shuffle) are indeed orders of magnitude better than Spotify.  Sound quality is noticeably better as well, even in a car.

Whatever the answer is for you personally, this will never be fixed by Spotify, because they do not consider it broken.

I am currently working on setting up a Plex server.  If the player is any good at all, this may be the ultimate solution for me, as I own the media for the vast majority of that which I want to hear anyway.

[gilhelliot]

There are songs on my liked list I have literally never heard, even though I listen to this list daily and they've been on the list for months. Create a true random shuffle option.

[Leventine]

I mean I find shuffle works perfectly fine, turn off repeat and you will increase the odds of getting those songs.

If this were truly an issue just create seperate playlists and cull the main one down or something, if my 'liked songs' hits 1k songs I move my favourites to my favourites playlist since they stood the test of time and I couldn't get enough of them, I make other playlists and cull the liked songs back to 500.

[ideasmansteve]

5 **bleep**ing years later and you useless cheap cunts still haven't fixed**bleep**.

Your service effectively does not have a shuffle option at all.

What dumb **bleep** PM pitched this idea in some stupid meeting and then forced the poor devs to implement what they probably knew was one of the most **bleep**ing **bleep**ed ideas in the entire universe?

Seriously, fix this **bleep**bleep**!

I've already exported my playlists and am a week away from moving to your competitor.

[Sugarrnspice]

Sorry no, repeat isn't a grey function and in this case, OP is correct. Some of us just want a master list that doesn't bury songs when shuffling due to its size. Would love to see a no repeat or shuffle all function added.

[rozeboosje]

Like you said.... 5 years. So why wait even another week?

[SmellTheFarts]

Shuffle is broken! When I put my 434 Liked Songs on shuffle, with repeat off, I keep getting the same 20-30 songs playing over and over in the same order. It occasionally throws in something different, but there are songs in my list that I haven't heard in months. I've tried every setting change, clearing my cache many times, and reinstalling the app. Turning off Automix or Autoplay doesn't do anything, as some users on Reddit have suggested. Smart Shuffle on/off doesn't make a difference. Manually picking a different song to start with doesn't make a difference. There really is no way around the horrible shuffle.

The other day, I went for a 45 minute drive and skipped past the same exact grouping of songs 4 times. Four times... I've resorted to turning shuffle off and just listening to the list from top to bottom, and it's me constantly saying "oh, I forgot about this song!" as something I haven't heard in forever pops up. 

A lot of people have reported this issue. There hasn't been any fix. Please listen to us, Spotify. Please fix the shuffle. I'm a paying customer and I've given you a 1-star review on the Play store, for now.

[ideasmansteve]

Uh... because its a monthly subscription and I have a week left Einstein?