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"?

[pablolie]

Well, according to the moderators this topic has been "solved". HOW exactly none of us is sure about.

What's funny (or sad) is the fact the original concern in the first page was never addressed. And that was in the simple times when there only existed *one* queue, it seems. 

That original concern is still there: play an album, then add another to the queue, and -voila!- all the songs from the first album you wanted to listen to FIRST now will be player AFTER all the songs in the album you added to the queue. That makes no sense whatsoever in any way, no way. What I want to play FIRST should always also play FIRST unless I am using "shuffle". 

Now, to top that off, there are 2 queues, namely "Next Up" and "Next in Queue", which we were told means...

 > "Next up" is the list of songs which the app puts in the Queue by default

> and "Next in queue" is what you add to the Queue manually. 

Wait - why would I want the app to drop any stuff I haven't chosen in the queue "by default"...? 

My answer to this all is... playlists, but playlists also have limitations that are bothersome. 

[bravo8whiskey]

Very unfortunate indeed.  What's actually going to play next here?  To me, personally, "Next up" means that's what's playing LITERALLY next, followed by the queue. 

And I can't do the playlist thing as I just find it too clunky.  Realize I'm beating a dead horse here.  Just going to do the talking with my wallet as I suggest other users do.  If we continue supporting them they have no reason to change.

[mamuf]

The queue system in Spotify is still absolutely horrible UX to this day. I want a full control, i.e., I want to decide if I want to add new songs to play next, or add them at the end of the queue. This is how ti works in Apple Music app – it gives you those options.

I just can't understand how it is that Spotify things its queue system is the best they could do. Does anyone wonder why so many people don't get it? Why they are annoyed by it? It's because Spotify can't come up with a well designed user experience.

[gtrmike5150]

It's because they have millions of subscribers and no incentive to change
it.

[mesopopotamus]

I can't believe the queue is so broken on 2022. I remember Groveshark having a better UX on 2009! More than a decade has passed and we are stuck with this. It has too much focus on automatic playlist creation instead of empowering us users to make proper playlists on the fly. 

[Shon1178]

2023, still broken, plenty I could say about Spotify and music streaming in general but I'd just get deleted. Can't believe this is still the state of things 8 years after the initial question.

[nhindart27]

My issue is that Spotify’s system uses two diff methods at the same time. It ain’t as simple as last in first out. And as such so irritating, because; 1) if you’re playing an existing queue, and add more songs/albums/w.e to that queue, the newly added songs jump the line, ignoring the existing queue. But 2) the individual songs/w.e will stay in the order you chose them, even as they take “next up” position.

And there’s the very simple solution people; add the option for the user to choose “play next” OR “add to queue”, as the phrase suggests.

Other platforms have this. So, are you being different-difficult on purpose? Sincerely