[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

[user-removed]

So when will this be done. It can’t take that long to fix this problem. This is a big deal to alot of people. 

[jimxsexton]

I'd love to hear artists support this idea! Millions of artist manhours agonising over track order and it gets shuffled.

When I hear "the load out' not followed by 'stay' or 'we all fall in love sometimes' not followed by 'curtains' a little bit of me dies inside. etc., etc...

Come on artists! Speak up. ✊

[Scottricho]

Surely Spotify this can't be too hard!? It's pure common sense that some songs just must be played together. We will rock you and We are the Champions for one, as has been pointed out by others. Stevie Wright's Evie parts 1, 2, and 3 is another. Venus and Mars/Rock Show... heaps of other examples. Just do it! Please!

[BamBamxxxx]

I omit interludes from playlists or just skip them just because on Shuffle, they feel random and out of place, but if this was a feature, I'd be able to link an interlude with its respective song, so it can be appreciated. :3

[Le_Rice]

Some songs are very frequently played in pairs with each other. The best example I have of this is Led Zeppelin's Heartbreaker and Living Loving Maid. It is customary that if one of those songs is being played on the radio then the other will follow directly afterwards. My suggestion is to add song pairing, where you can make pairings of songs that will automatically be grouped together when a playlist is put on shuffle.

[jlogan640]

I think allowing a "scripting function" to ALWAYS play certain songs back-to-back when they come up on the playlist is a VERY good idea for the platform. Please refer to 2 examples below:

One should be able to enable play-back-to-back feature on a song if they wish but I do not think the function should be enabled by default.

1.  Play "Golden Slumbers" and "Carry That Weight" by the Beatles back to back as they flow PERFECTLY into one another and end up as one cohesive song.

2. Play a NUMBER of Pink Floyd songs back-to-back. An example is the entirety of the "Dark Side of the Moon" album.

Users could decice which songs in which they ALWAYS want to hear that sweet transition between the two tracks in some circumstances and avoid enabling the features for others. This would be a beautiful addition to "shuffle-based" play in which one song will come up and be immediately ALWAYS followed by another.

[jlogan640]

ALSO

This will allow users who have a "miss-matched" library of several genres to group together their music in such a way that the user would be able to sustain a "certain vibe" for a period of time. This would essentially allow the user to group their "Liked" library into pockets of tracks of similar genre or "feel" to enhance the end-user experience significantly.

[lahefrma]

This is also very useful for classical music, where a piece (for example a symphony or a piano concerto) consists of multiple parts. It would be great if these multiple parts could always be played together when they are part of a playlist.

[sbf66]

PLEASE move forward with this. It is so disappointing every time my subconscious expects to hear the second song in a two song combo but gets hit with something entirely different. Today, The Load-Out was followed by My Sharona. I love them both but not hearing Stay in between was frustrating. 

[apartment604]

This would be a big improvement. Right now when I make playlists, I have to leave out songs that are normally linked together, which happens with classic rock... like a big chunk of Abbey Road, or Sirius/Eye In The Sky by Alan Parsons, Feeling That Way/Anytime by Journey, on and on.