Introducing Smart Shuffle!

[Joan]

Introducing Smart Shuffle! 

We know that our users love creating their own playlists to capture key moments in time – in fact, playlists created by users often become their most-streamed playlist for the first several months but listening to these playlists slowly fades overtime, and users are eager to discover new music.

With this in mind, we’re excited to launch a new play mode called Smart Shuffle that keeps listening sessions fresh and provides personalized recommendations that perfectly match any listeners’ playlist vibe. 

This update will roll out to Premium users on mobile devices starting today.

How does Smart Shuffle work?

• You can use it in any playlist created by you, and your Liked Songs.
• To activate it, just use the Shuffle button to switch between regular play, Shuffle mode and Smart Shuffle.
• When Smart Shuffle is on, recommendations are added to your session automatically. You can find all the recommendations sitting in your queue.
• You will be able to recognize the music we are recommending with the sparkle (✨) symbol next to the track. For a playlist with more than 15 songs, we’ll recommend one song for every three tracks.
• And the best part, your original playlist remains untouched, so you can add any new track that catches your ear.
• If you like a specific recommendation, just save it using the plus button in the Now Playing View. If that song doesn’t hit right, just tap the minus to remove it from the recommendations. This is then used to better adjust the suggestions we put forward.
• Every time you turn Smart Shuffle off, a new mix will be available every time you activate it again.

Introductory pageHow the queue will look

Adding and removing recommendations.

Different playback options.

FAQ

What about the Enhance feature?

For now, Smart Shuffle will replace the Enhance feature.

What will happen to Discover Weekly and other regularly updated playlists?

For the time being, no changes to those will be made. Smart Shuffle aims to improve the listening experience for user curated playlists.

Does this mean that using Smart Shuffle will cause my carefully curated playlists to get cluttered with new recommendations?

No! Your original playlist remains untouched, so you can add any new track that catches your ear. Smart Shuffle won’t change your playlist without your explicit permission. What changes instead is what you'll hear during each specific listening session

🌟 I would like to disable Smart Shuffle permanently. Can I do that?

Yes, you can! Just go to Settings and privacy and then to Playback and toggle the option Enable all play modes to off. This will mean you will only have the regular shuffle. 

Note: This option is for Premium users only.

We hope you're as excited as we are about this new play mode. The official Newsroom announcement is out, you can check that out too. For any and all feedback on the matter you may have, you're more than welcome to comment in the thread below.

[nnusic]

Bring back the enhanced button please. So much easier and simple. I’m close to changing to Apple Music for this new change. I was able to acquire new music easily and it seems like it’s not so easy anymore. 

[DustinRascon]

I just came back from Amazon Music Unlimited and am having serious doubts about my decision. This Smart Shuffle feature is not intuitive, not necessary, and almost completely ruins the user experience. I create playlists specifically for the artists that I want to hear and I want to use shuffle like a basic b****h: take the songs I picked then jumble 'em around then play ONLY THOSE SONGS. This is not complicated. And, while I understand that some folks might enjoy an AI algorithm being used to introduce new music, don't force us to interact with a feature that is obviously not wanted. Why can't we have regular shuffle (on and off only) and a completely separate Smart Shuffle option?

[repomanz]

Is this broken? I can't seem to toggle between off, shuffle and smart shuffle as of a couple days ago.  Love the smart shuffle and would enjoy having it back.

[ToastyGlenn]

I would also like a way to remove the smart shuffle option. Having to cycle between shuffle and not shuffle is great for listening; however, this new smart shuffle feature takes too long to load and I will never genuinely use it. I will just use the new DJ feature if I want to 'enhance' my music listening. Please allow us to disable / remove the smart shuffle option so we can simple shuffle our music or play the music in the order we choose.

[ToastyGlenn]

I would like to second this post to try and enunciate to Spotify management that we do not like this new 'smart shuffle' feature. It is obnoxious and is not an intuitive way to seamlessly listen to the music and playlists we create for ourselves.

[pallas84]

The nerve to continue to ignore the community feedback about this feature then give us a popup saying the price is going up.

[LollardHeretic]

You took a good feature (enhance) and threw it in the toilet and then completely ruined the Spotify experience with the Smart Shuffle feature.

I don't know what to think now. You're asking me to pay a 13% price increase yet you keep **bleep**ing up. Why should I reward you for that?

Honestly seriously considering ending my 5 year long subscription and swapping to another platform.

FIX**bleep** SPOTIFY!!!

[maksim013]

Please make a switch off for it in settings. Nobody asked for this feature and while some enjoy it, I just want to not have to cycle through it all the time I want to shuffle my music. I don’t need new suggestions. It’s annoying. Thanks! 

[recyclist]

You're making the Android app actively worse with basically every update. I'm only still with Spotify out of habit and laziness. When trying to go from shuffle to no shuffle it takes ages with bad or no connection (I'm writing this from a train in Germany so I'm stuck with bad connection for hours). I usually like to reshuffle my queue quite often which is made impossible by this change. "smart" shuffle has been received really badly and yet you don't seem to be wanting to fix it or give your loyal customers more information on this new "feature"... 

[bustedlogin]

This feature absolutely sucks, like most of Spotify's attempts to "recommend" songs to me. I have a specifically curated really mellow playlist with a vibe and smart shuffle was enabled without my knowledge and I was blasted with "Walking on Sunshine" which completely messed with it.

[bustedlogin]

This feature absolutely sucks, like almost all of Spotify's attempts to "recommend" songs to me. I have specifically curated playlists. Why do I want Spotify's crappy algorith to force its suggestions on me. In this case, I have created a mellow playlist with a vibe - smart shuffle was enabled without my knowledge and I was blasted with "Walking on Sunshine" which has literally nothing in common with this playlist in either vibe, tone or intent. Stop having your nerds come up with UX changes that force recommend things outside the discover playlist. It's not wanted.

[hoffman27]

Switching between shuffle and smart shuffle modes is very laggy. Really slows down the process of “re-shuffling”. Also will remove manually queued songs and has cause the entire app to crash (iOS).

[Christianus]

Seriously the most annoying and unnecessary "feature" ever. If I wanted to listen to new tracks I would check in my Discover Weekly.

If you must force it on us at least make it a separate button from the regular Shuffle. Sometimes I just want to reshuffle and I don't want it to take an extra 5 minutes because it needs to go through "smart" shuffle.

[OmegaYeti]

Smart shuffle is awful.  I’m thinking of ditching Spotify due to this travesty of a feature! Don’t force things on  consumers that we don’t want!

[zach1328]

Smart shuffle is an absolute disaster on mobile. PLEASE GIVE AN OPTION TO DISABLE SMART SHUFFLE! It's so dumb and annoying

[loveulikeu]

I've been a dedicated user of your app for a whole decade now, and I can honestly say that I've enjoyed the ride. You've brought music into my life in a way that I couldn't have imagined. However, there's one recent addition that has me seriously contemplating a switch to other music apps, and that's the "smart shuffle" feature.

I've always appreciated your efforts to innovate and enhance the user experience, but smart shuffle has left me feeling a bit frustrated. After 10 years of using the app without major complaints, this is the first time I've found myself genuinely considering alternatives.

The hassle of going through smart shuffle just to get to regular shuffle mode feels unnecessary and clunky. It used to be so simple, and now it's like there's a hoop to jump through.

My biggest frustration is its performance in low service areas, which, living in NYC, I encounter quite often, especially during subway rides. When I want to switch to shuffle mode to spice up my playlist, the smart shuffle feature often refuses to load, and I'm left in a 10-20 second limbo before it decides it won't work. 

I've always appreciated the convenience and wide music selection that Spotify offers, but this smart shuffle hiccup has made me wonder if it's time to explore other options. I genuinely hope you take user feedback into account and address these concerns because I'd hate to part ways with a service I've grown to love over the years.

[MikeMusic1]

Spotify.  Please.  I have over 3500 songs downloaded on your platform and if you think i’m not petty enough to move my entire music library to another platform you’re dead wrong.  Fix.  The.  Platform.  For the love of god how many people have to cry in these replies and beg you to at least let your customers DISABLE the features you’re forcing us to use.   The Spotify higher ups need to get an immediate psychiatric evaluation.  NOT TO MENTION SPOTIFY DOESNT WORK ON PLAYSTATION AND HASNT FOR YEARS

[therealsho]

The Smart Shuffle feature is COMPLETELY ass. Spotify needs to stop pushing this **bleep**. 
I open my playlist and Smart Shuffle is enabled by default and it's a pain in the ass to just tap through every time and even when it's disabled it'll straight up mess with the play back order. 
Let's get more visibility on this and get rid of it. I do not care about learning more artists in my playlist - that is why we have the Home page to go discover music.

[user-removed]

Let me explain this in a way the dev team will understand: IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO USE AN ALGORITHM TO GIVE ACCURATE RECOMMENDATIONS. There are too many nuances to individual listening habits. Just because I like pop-punk, doesn't mean I will listen to ANY and EVERY pop-punk song that exists. Not even from bands I already like. Forcing these kinds of "features" on us with no way to opt out is the FASTEST way to lose customers, short of removing core functionality. You are not a social app, you are not an omnipotent being that knows all our wants and needs, YOU ARE A MUSIC PLATFORM. The second that changes, myself, and thousands of others can and will find another platform.

As others have stated: Having to wait an absurd amount of time for your poorly optimized code to populate our queue with stuff we don't want just so we can turn normal shuffle off and on again is UNACCEPTABLE.

Experiment on your free users, not your paying customers, or allow us to opt into features instead of arbitrarily deciding that everyone will "love" them. I'm a UX designer by trade, and this is completely inexcusable behavior.

[DavidP]

I hate smart shuffle. Please allow permanent disabling. Not only are the recommendations terrible, but I have to wait 2-3 seconds every time I want to cycle through the shuffle options. I just want to turn it on and off. The lag is horrible and irritates me every time. I don’t use this app to be irritated.