[Playlists] Ability to link together Tracks in Playlists

[bvacaliuc]

Hi,

Wouldn't it be great if you could "pair"/"link"/"lock" or "chain" tracks together in a playlist? Then even if you shuffle-played, certain songs would always play together.

mock-up of how linking/pairing a song might work.

This idea was actually started by @Sartoris in 2012:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Ability-to-link-together-tracks-in-playlists-also-for-...

But in 2015 it was closed as not having enough votes. Coincidentally, about the same time, I signed up for Spotify premium.  As I listened to all the songs I've "liked" with shuffle, the one thing that kept coming into my mind was the terrible feeling you get when a song that is meant to follow another is not played.  You get the feeling of being violated; it is a terrible experience.  As I searched for this feature, I saw that idea was marked inactive and decided to open it again.

That idea had gotten 138 likes in 2015 and as of January 2020 has gotten another 116 for a total of 255.  There were another 18 ideas then that all linked to the one above (see attached). So I re-submitted this idea in 2015 and since then you wonderful people have given it over 880 votes! Thank you!

From the rules, we see that we needed to have over 500 votes to keep the topic alive in monthly discussions (check!). We also see that we need 100 votes per year to keep it alive (check again!). So we're in good shape on that front. Now we have to see what we need to do to get it moving forward from "Not Right Now" to "Under Consideration".

Again, from the rules above, Spotify says that they use these criteria:

• Helping artists.
• Data and other information we've collected.
• Information from research testing, focus groups, and surveys.
• Feedback in the Community and other support channels. (That's us!)
• Our overall short- and long-term business strategy.

Hmm. Ok. So I would say that playing tracks that are meant to be together really helps the artists because their work is rendered in the correct way that they intended. I'm wondering how many artists are dying inside when their specially arranged songs are cut up because someone shuffled their playlist?

I can't speak to Spotify's data and research, focus groups and surveys, or about their business strategy. However, it occurs to me that anything that affects the order of which song plays can affect revenue because Spotify pays someone when a song gets played and they don't pay the same amount of $ for every song... Sure its a tiny fraction of a cent, but it adds up. So my first guess is that Spotify's hesitation to implement this idea is economic. I think we should continue the discussion along these lines to see if we could come up with some kind of consensus on this notion.

Letting a song "pair" with another in a playlist would be enough to make a lot of people happy.  Would we be willing to put some $ behind having this feature? Lets say Spotify charged you $0.01 (a cent) everytime you were shuffle playing and the queue hit a linked song and played the one that came after it. Would you be ok with that? If not, what would make it ok? I think answering the economic question is one thing that is keeping this idea from moving forward. @wsmyth commented in May 2019 that he would be willing to spend $1/month for this feature. I would do that too, would you?

From the many, many great comments, @WesleyM77 posted in April 2019 a link to a US Patent. There are two patents, actually, [US8214740B2] and [US9396760B2]. Reading through the two patents, it's clear that they cover this idea in many of its possible methods. So apart from the economic impact, Spotify may be prevented by the patent holder from implementing this feature. It has been noted that only one service has this feature, and now this explains it. The patents expire in 2030.

So, here we are. We want a feature, someone has successfully patented the feature and so we can't have nice things. Everyone including the patent holders want to make money, so is there a price that Spotify could negotiate with the patent holder and then pass on to the users that would be acceptable to all parties?

Spotify, would you look into this and get back to us?

Thanks very much!

-bogdan

[gerardoamc]

Spotify, listen to our prayers and please implement this. I've wished for this feature in music players for years! I can think of innumerable songs that have an intro in a separate track or that are just plainly split into two parts. This prevents me from adding them to playlists because the moment I hit shuffle the magic of the song is gone.

[mrdig]

Would definitely want this! Always have the same problem when shuffling my playlists 😞 I even avoid putting songs on playlists because of that, which impact the artists play count too!

[splat_matt]

delete

[splat_matt]

This an excellent idea, on that I hope Spotify reconsiders and implements soon. Several songs especially some by Pink Floyd, Queen, etc are meant to be played together and it would be nice if the tracks could be linked within a playlist so that when the playlist is shuffled the link songs are still played together and in the order intended. Like Steve Miller Band's "Space Intro" and Fly Like an Eagle"

[ianyhmak]

This idea of linking songs within a playlist so that they can always be played sequentially even in shuffle mode is a great idea. I hope it can be implemented. It is particularly useful to classical music listeners where a lot of the pieces are broken into different tracks according to movements. It would be great if there is an option so that they can be linked and played together as one piece of work.

[CCRDad]

YES! This is something I've wanted on Spotify ever since I signed up! Please implement this idea! 

This needs to change from 'Not Right Now' to 'Right Now'.

[antwerpsplacebo]

How is this not a function already? So much music calls for it, and the demand is clearly there. Please make this happen, Spotify. I'm a premium subscriber, and the absence of this feature leaves me with a less than positive customer experience for enjoying music. I would prefer to stay with Spotify, but it's an important enough feature to me that I would switch services to have that capability. 

[1280836633]

This totally should be a thing.

Can we get this seen by more Spotify users? I feel like we could really get this off the ground if we share/retweet the idea.

-Cris

[jblauer60]

Another, perhaps simpler, way to accomplish the same thing may be to allow playlists to be nested. So I could create a playlist of my songs I want played together, then add that playlist to another playlist, so that when the outer playlist is shuffled, the inner playlist may be played in sequence.

[totallykvothe]

This is an awesome idea!