[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

[riff-1954]

What If?

[3lfgi61blzyfl0pv2i41]

It would be nice if Spotify offered the ability to link playlists together.  The linked playlists would function as a single playlist; going through them sequentially or randomly.  That way, a user can have fine-grained playlists by musician, genre, etc; and, link them together for a specific mood and musical combination.

[Jtp291]

Make a feature which allows 2 or more songs in a playlist to be "bound" together in a playlist, so that when in shuffle mode they are treated as one song- that is they are always played together one after another.

Some songs on albums, and especially on live albums, are meant to be played together sequentially- whether because they are intentionally split up on the album, or they just plain go together.  For example- The Grateful Dead's "China Cat Sunflower>" and "I Know You Rider"

Creating this feature would allow those duos to be listened to together as intended and still allow for the flexibility to shuffle play long playlists.

[VoiceThatKills]

hey there! there's been a few posts like this one, but so far spotify hasn't taken to this idea 😞 maybe this one could be left up however, I don't know for sure the last time this was brought up.

There is 

"[Playlists] Ability to link together Tracks in Playlists"

from 2015. Not sure if there are more.

[Martizt609]

So I love shuffling my favorite songs as does everyone. BUT one thing that I think needs to happen is even if you are in shuffle mode songs that ‘roll’ into one another should be paired together. For example, 

Hozier: De Selby (Part 1) and De Selby (Part 2)

are meant to be played one after the other and it is so unsatisfying when I’m in shuffle mode and De Selby (Part 1) comes on and then another in random song comes on and doesn’t scratch the itch my brain needs. Anyways, thank you for your time.

[flashmike]

You're right but they ain't listening. I would pay a premium to be able to
link songs in shuffle. But Spotify doesn't respond. All the other
Platforms do not offer it either. It's a shame.

[cheez3l]

There are certain songs that, when I hear them play on shuffle, I want to queue a specific song that always follows after it. For example two songs on an album could transition into each other and are great to listen to back to back. 

My idea is to combine two songs into a bundle within a playlist, so that whenever one of the songs plays, the other will automatically follow without you having to manually add it to the queue

[riff-1954]

8 years now we been requesting this feature. Spotify don't care.

[Ruedingerallen]

Sometimes in an album a song will carry into the next track. My idea is if you could attach that second track to the first one in a playlist so that anytime track one plays track two will follow. So that you never have a song start that is the encore/riff/ extension of the previous song that did not just previously play. Sometimes that “extension” track is less than a minute and holds no relevance unless the correct track is listened to and often intensifies the feeling of the previous. I think this would be a very cool feature. 

thanks. 

[cauecello]

Hello, Spotify Team!

I’d like to suggest a feature that I believe could enhance the user experience: the ability to group specific songs so they always play together in shuffle mode.

The idea is to allow users to create "playback groups" within a playlist. For instance, if I group songs A, B, and C, whenever one of them is selected during shuffle, the others would automatically play in sequence before moving to the next random track. This would be particularly useful for users who enjoy listening to songs with thematic connections, smooth transitions, like classical music that is divided into movements, for example.

I think this feature would make playlists even more customizable and provide a more immersive listening experience. I hope you consider this idea!