Shuffle should not repeat a song until X% of the the rest of the playlist has been played

[captglasspac]

My starred playlist is 250+ tracks, yet when I shuffle play I hear some song all of the time and others never. Spotify should keep track of the play history across sessions. Once a song has been played, it won'tbe put back into the sample pool until half (or some other percentage) of the other songs are played.

Example: Playlist X has 100 songs. When on shuffle, as soon as song Y is played it is put "on hold" and won't be considered for play until at least 50 other songs have been played.

I get sick of hearing the same songs over and over and this is easily a fixable problem. I would also hope that this is a duplicate suggestion, but I didn't see anything.

Bart

[Marco]

Marked as new idea.
You might also want to add your kudos to an idea about a "smart shuffle" that doesn't repeat a track until every single song of a playlist has been played here.

[imerinashley]

YES! How is this not a thing already?! It seems obvious to me that if I want to shuffle a playlist I want to hear the WHOLE playlist. 

[Craythur]

Shuffle should never repeat a song until the playlist has been exhausted.

But a threshold random would be nice *gives a kudos*

[captglasspac]

Yeah, my idea is that you could set the percentage. Default should be 100%. Thanks for the kudos

[user-removed]

I am also annoyed of this. There should be an easy function where you can decide if the songs are ordered completely random(with repeat) or just 1 time mixed up and then all played in a row. Maybe via rightclick on playlist, so you dont need to overload the actual interface with another button.

[mysticwolf]

I thought it already did that for playlists!! But I have noticed that when I go to an artist's page and shuffle their music, it doesn't play all their songs, but more often it plays their most popular songs, and repeats them before I hear other songs on their albums.

[rednblu]

        >>  I hear some songs all of the time and others never.

I completely agree with 1) avoiding repeats of songs you just heard and 2) breaking through to get to songs that the Spotify interface "hides" from the user.

Can you post for us a "Copy HTTP Link" to your 250 track playlist that Shuffle does not shuffle correctly?

Here is what I do when I don't like what Shuffle does.

* Is Shuffle actually "turned on"?  On the PC interface, click on Playback in the upper left.  Is the "Shuffle" line checked?  If the Shuffle line is not checked, then click on the Shuffle line.  Then click on Playback again to see if the Shuffle line is checked now.  (Sometimes I forget to turn Shuffle back on after I play my playlists that I have ordered in the sequence that I want the playback.)

* Do you like the "Play Queue" that Shuffle has given you?  If you don't like the songs that Shuffle has queued for you, then right click on your playlist (or folder) and then click the "Choose as Current Playlist" line.  You will notice that Shuffle, if it is "on", will give you a completely different shuffle displayed in your "Play Queue".  

* Does your playlist have "duplicate tracks" of the songs that Shuffle plays too much?  Here is a tool [ http://bl.ocks.org/sk89q/raw/c405b25ee8984ac06772/ ] outside Spotify into which you can drag the selection of your whole playlist and remove any duplicates; the duplicate tracks removed will remain displayed in the upper window.  (You may not be able to reach any DeDuplicate tool from a mobile interface.)

* Just curious.  Why don't you have a playlist more like 9,500 tracks?  Your 250 track playlist will play without repeats for only about 18 hours-- less than a day.  If your playlist had 9,500 tracks, that playlist would play for almost a whole month-- with 27 X 7 play-- with no repeats if your playlist is setup right.

* Did you check the actual play statistics in  last.fm ?  From my experience, the Shuffle algorithm is perfect the way that it is.  And I usually preview the "Play Queue" to see if I like the mix.  I regularly check the actual play statistics-- such as under "Top Tracks", "Last 7 days"-- to see whether the Shuffle is working correctly-- and I am impressed by how random it actually is.  In my experience, if  last.fm  shows that Shuffle has given me "the same songs over and over"-- that is because I have either 1) duplicate tracks or 2) bad data in the Artist or Track fields of my playlist.  Several times I found that the Shuffle was not "on"-- as displayed under Playlist at the top left of the PC interface screen.  I have never found the Shuffle function to be at fault.

There is a huge problem in the Spotify UserInterface with giving "the same songs over and over"-- caused by 1) misspellings in either Track or Artist, 2) 700 useless covers of, for example, "Eleanor Rigby" already embedded in users' "DeDuplicated playlists", and 3) design flaws in the Spotify database that violate FirstNormal form and jam IrrelevantTo_SongName information, such as "Live", "Remastered", . . . into the Track column.  But none of those serious problems would be addressed by this proposed change to make Shuffle remember how much of the playlist has already been played.  Am I right?

[captglasspac]

To answer your questions:

1) Yes shuffle is turned on. 

2) I mosty use the function on my mobile (galaxy s3, android) so there is no play queue that I know of.

3) Playlist has no double tracks or if it does, not very many. That's not the problem.

4) The playlist is just songs I really really like, so I don't junk it up by adding full albums. Also, I have pretty crappy data service, so I prefer to use the playlists and albums I have downloaded when I'm not in wifi range.

5) I've never used last.fm. I'll check it out.

As for those problems you mention at the end, they all need to be addressed, but they are not the problem I'm trying to address. I want Spotify to remember my play history accross sessions and remove a track from the list of possble tracks to be played for the next so many tracks. It's a simple suggestion for an improvement, but not a cure all. 

An example of what I'm experiencing is that I open the play list and hit Shuffle Play while I'm driving to work and I hear "Fluffy" by Ween (great song). I may or may not use Spotify again throughout the day, but the next day, I hit Shuffle Play again and a few songs in pops up Fluffy. What a coincidence, I might think, but I've heard Fluffy four or five times in the past month, all while shuffling my favorits playlist. I'd say out of 100 songs that are shuffled accross sessions, 10% of them are repeats. I like more variety. Fluffy's getting all the action, meanwhile The Past is a Grotesque Animal sets there lonely. 

[rednblu]

Curious!  Can you publish for us the "Copy HTTP Link" for the playlist that gives you so many plays of "Fluffy" by Ween?  Maybe you have to make that playlist public?  -- if that is all right with you?  I would like to see what you describe happen.

[Neolocutus]

My GF has noticed this more then I have. This is the sole reason she never uses shuffle on Spotify. This would be a great fix 🙂