[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

[Blibdoolpoolp]

Here I am, FOUR YEARS LATER after my original comment, still wanting this feature. I could write the code for you and send it in faster than this. Crazy. I'm very close to canceling Spotify and just using iTunes or some other music management software. The darn convenience of Spotify though! Gah!

[ianrcahoon]

A solution to linking two songs, or Abbey Road Medley, or symphony movements in the correct order (I would use all of these) would be to allow a playlist to contain another playlist.  Any "child" playlist could be programmed to always play in sequence by track number.  This would solve all the situations discussed in this link, two songs, symphony movements, Abbey Road Medley.  My thoughts on the solution.

Thanks.

[Obuck347]

not right now cause your too busy doing what?

[wsmyth]

It’s because Apple has a patent and they don’t want to pay Apple to use it.

[dancingtrout]

21 pages later, three years since the re-posting of this idea which means it's been longer than that, active paying spotify users have been asking for this simple function and not only do we not get it, we get ignored, or we get shot down.

If Apple DOES have a patent the least they can do is just own up to that and I would shut up. But until then, I think plenty of users have expressed enough interest that this is something Spotify should consider. Pretty please, with a cherry on top.

[rainlamp]

Jeeesh.  I get notified every time someone comments on this idea and it's pretty frequent.  Feels like a popular feature request and, honestly, for music lovers, is sort of a no-brainer.  Spotify dev has shrugged it twice now in four (FOUR!) years which, given the trickle of feature adds that are released, tells me that:

1) they have a teeny tiny dev team

2) there dev team is woefully weak

3) the core SW is buggy as **bleep** which keeps the team busy firefighting

4) they're....just lazy

Or, as others have suggested, there is a patent issue which, if that were true, I see no reason for the Spotify admins on this board not to be forthright about (you're canned messages are insulting).  

My opinion, FWIW, is that Spotify's resources are focused on content - artist and publisher deals, rights to access, int'l copyright - and not product development.  But who knows.

[634bmf01]

This feature is a no-brainer for anyone who likes to listen to prog rock. Unless Spotify will put the songs together as one by default, like what they did with Rush's 2112, this feature is necessary. We need the full experience. 

[Nitemann]

I have been thinking the same ever since Tool's catalog became available.  Parabol, just should automagically launch into Parabola. Some Pink Floyd is like this too.  Motley Crue TnT into Dr. Feelgood would also be nice.

[NicolasREV]

I swear to god I tried to find this request and accidentally created a duplicate. WE NEED THIS!!!

[RejectedGalaxy]

This would be sick. Namco recently released all the tracks for most of the Tekken games, and a lot of them are split into parts for some reason. It'd be so nice to link them so they'd play together when on shuffle.