Help me understand Spotify's queue

[jonathansick]

I'm coming to Spotify from years Rdio, and I'm totally confused about how Spotify does play queues. Maybe you can help me understand Spotify's logic.

My goal is

1. Start playing an album
2. While the first album is playing, queue up another album to play after it
3. repeat step 2

What actually happens when I do this in Spotify is

1. I pick an album to play. On the queue page, I see the first song is the "Current Track" and the remaining songs on the Album are the "Next Tracks"
2. I go to another album, and select "Add to Queue". Now the second album is in "Queued Tracks" and the album I'm playing is in "Next Tracks". At this point I'm a little worried.
3. My worries pan out and Spotify's queue switches from the first album I was playing to the queued album.
4. I can add additional albums to the end of the "Queued Tracks". A success!
5. Once my queue is finished, Spotify finally gets around the playing the remaining tracks of my first album.

So what's the deal? Do I just treat the first album as a sacrificial lamb so I can add other stuff to the proper queue and ignore the weirdness of Spotify saving the rest of the first album for later? The whole idea of a "Next Tracks" being separate from "Queued Tracks" seems like utter nonsense to me. *But* I'm really curious to see if there's value in Spotify's logic.

Is my workflow the best way to queue up a bunch of albums to play in order? What do you Spotify veterans do?

Is there any way to have songs from my albums, even the first one I play, show up in "Queued Tracks" rather than "Next Tracks"?

[dsa_7 · Accepted solution]

Hey jonathansick, welcome to the Community! Rest assured, I'll be able to help you queue like a pro in no time. What you should do is add your first album to the queue, then add your second album, and so on. If you start playing an album, then add something to the queue, the queue takes priority and the queue is cleared before the rest of the album plays. If you add everything you want to listen to to the queue, everything will take priority. If you start listening to an album, the entire album ISN'T added to the queue, you have to add the album to the queue, to add the album to the queue.

I hope I helped. The Community is great for helping others over in the Help forum, discovering new music in The Green Room and making new friends everywhere! Feel free to explore, and I look forward to seeing you on the forums some time! Good luck with queuing your jam and rock on!

[jonathansick]

Thanks 🙂 So I just 'Add to queue' from the (...) menu everywhere. That works.

Is there any way to clear the 'up next' part of the queue?

[dsa_7]

To clear 'Up Next', you could try listening to a single (rather than an album, playlist or library) and then form your queue. Once your queue is drained, nothing will play until you choose something else. 🙂

[Beirutbomber]

Gosh, I didn't understand a thing you said...even when I tried, it didn't make any sense. I've been trying for years to understand it, but it surely shouldn't be so complex. I'll try and ask spotify again, if theyre reaeding this, can you please fix the queue feature so it makes sense. Let's see if the following example will help the Spotify team understand waht we spotify users are trying to achieve with the QUEUÉ-----------this is how spotify queue currently works...... I'm at the cinemas in a line waiting to buy a ticket then ten people walk in and the Concierge asks them to get into the queue to pay for their tickets so they all get right in the front of the current queue and push the rest of the people back so they end up buying a ticket before everyone else who's been waiting before them. Now, I would like to see a queue system where when these people come in to the cinema to buy a ticket that when the concierge asks them to get into the queue they actually line up at the end and wait their turn. Can we spotify users ask for anything more simple than this..surely your IT guys can knock this out very quickly...surely guys, surely the spotify team can invest a few hours and few dollars in programming this into a very much highly requested logical feature. I gues Spotify won't like it if you pay them late, then again you could say "the payment is waiting in the Queue":)

[NE14]

Essentially the technique is this: Instead of starting to play your first album, and then using "add to queue" for the second album, you should "use "Add to queue" for the very first album BEFORE you start playing anything. Then, when you use "add to queue" for the second album it will go to the end, and so on for the third, fourth etc. So ONLY use the "add to queue" to set it up, don't start with anything playing already. Once you have your albums in line then hit play and go.

[lucasp]

yeah, i dont understand how they managed to break a simple & widespread feature such as a song queue! Song queue worked just fine the way it has always been since the times of the good old Winamp.

I wish I could understand what's going on behind Spotify's UX Wizards minds. There MUST be a VERY strong reason to want to change such a common user behaviour.

[Beirutbomber]

Honestly, there shouldn't even be a debate as to how one should queue a song or album. The term "QUEUE " is a simple word to understand, and if it's not working as per the English definition of QUEUE, then they need to call it something else. It's as simple as ABC, not like ACB..... http://www.thefreedictionary.com/queue

[Beirutbomber]

To help spotify and the entire population that uses spotify, i have finally discovered the queue system which spotify uses and they need to rename it as such to avoid this confusion, it is known as a PUSH DOWN QUEUE, which means the last item queued is the first item played.... guys at spotify let everyone one know that you're queuing system is a PUSH DOWN QUEUE... so for example, the last person entering the cinema to buy a ticket is the first person served, yes indeed this is the system spotify uses.

[lucasp]

"push down queue" is also known as "stack" (Last In, First Out - LIFO) in programming 😃

[chtamina]

I totally agree this queue system makes NO sense to me. Why the fact the the album is already playing (or not) should change the queue concept ?

[objetmagique]

Agree with many people here. Please improve this, @Spotify! Very confusing.

If you aim to keep it simple, it's ok to have a single way to add to the queue, but please get it right 😕 and it should add to the END of the queue, since it seems to be how everyone expects the command to work.

Alternatively, support both methods as Apple Music does (Play Next vs Play Later)

Thanks!

[theprash]

The queuing system is obviously bonkers. You can see how hard dsa_7 had to try to make it sound sane.

I can actually understand why Spotify chose this system to a degree. When a user selects some track in a playlist or album they often aren't thinking "I'd like to clear the queue, start playing this track and queue the later tracks in this playlist". They're often just thinking "I want to hear this song". And I guess that most people don't ever touch the queueing feature. But Spotify seems overly scared to surprise the user by including the "later" tracks in the queue, hence the extra "Next up" queue. It seems well intentioned but it results in a confusing mess for most people who actually use queues and have a normal simple mental model for them!

I would suggest having 2 queueing options as both are sometimes useful:

1. "Queue next" or "Add to start of queue"

2. "Queue last" or "Add to end of queue"

And then you can get rid of the weird "Next Up" section. No one is looking for or enjoying this split-queue behaviour...

[DollarTwentyFiv]

Spotify, your queue system makes no sense.

If I am playing an album, and then I add something to the queue, it should go AFTER all the songs that are listed for the album I am currently playing. It is not a difficult concept to grasp, Spotify. Are you telling me the current songs from the album that is playing are not in the "queue"? Then where tf are they?

Why do we have "Up Next" and "Queue" as if they are two separate and competing list? How is that not obviously extremely confusing? Are you trying to be terrble or are you just incompetant?

Spotify has had terrible UX from day 1 and they are determined to have terrible UX forever, it seems. They never listen to complaints (why tf can't we see a list of all the songs and artists we've recently played, a la Last.fm?), they always seem to make stupid choices without considering what their users want.

[cameronbraun]

This is still, hands down, the most frustrating thing about Spotify. I was a long time, very satisfied Rdio user, and their queue structure honored the songs in a particular album. In fact, you could rearrange your queue BY ALBUM rather than by song. It was nearly perfect.

I describe it like this: If you had a stack of physical records that you intended to listen to, and you found a new album at the record store, you could bring it home and put it on the bottom of the stack. Once you'd listened to all of your records, you'd get to that one. But if you decided you wanted to skip some of those other records, you could reach into the stack and grab whatever you wanted and move it to the top of the pile. Once the current album was finished, you'd play whatever was on the top of the stack.

This is how Rdio worked, and it was brilliant. A virtual version of a real-life thing. All these years later, and Spotify's "queue" still makes no sense to me.

[Justin-Morgan]

I found my way here as well, because the whole queue concept that Spotify uses is so counter intuitive. 

As a Microsoft Groove refugee I am at a loss at how Spotify made it so far with such a jumbeld mess of an interface.

A simple fix would be adding a "play next" option and treat the "add to queue" as every other music player has treated it since the days of WinAmp.

[professorkliq]

When I get into a line for a bar or security at an airport, because I got there last doesn't mean I jump to the front of the line. 

That's not how queues work. I don't really know what else to say beyond that. iTunes offers both options, I have no idea why Spotify wouldn't.

[JitterbugBoy]

This post said it was solved. How. I have just wasted 5 mins reading through the (admittedly quite witty) responses to find it is only solved to the extent I now understand Spotify have a ridiculous queue that makes ruins your listening pleasure. What’s wrong with just having menu options for “Play Next” and “add to end of queue” couldn’t be simpler. I guarantee they have some kind of Product Council which depends wholly on focus groups etc and is full of people who are two scared to actually make a common sense decision. 

[Danyah]

Thank you! This is by far the simplist and most concise explaination on this entire thread. I had no idea what was going on with my queue so really appreciate you clearning this up!!

[TonyD]

Actually this is not correct. Spotify does not use a push-down queue.

The confusion arises because if you play something directly, it is not added to the "queue" for some reason. Then, if you add something to the queue, the queue takes priority over whatever it was you were playing.

Example: I start playing an album directly, and Oxygene Pt 2 is playing. Next would come Oxygene Pt 3.

I add Teen Spirit to the queue.

I add Star Spangled Banner to the queue.

When Oxygene Pt 2 is finished playing, Teen Spirit plays.

Then Star Spangled Banner plays.

Then the queue is empty so Oygene Pt 3 plays.

To get the behavior we all want and expect, I don't play stuff directly but add everything to the queue. So I start by adding Oxygene, then if while it's playing I add Teen Spirit, it plays after all of Oxygene is finished.

Works once you get your head around it...