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.

[strerd]

I've had it. Ty Dolla Sign & Kanye West keep coming up. I've blocked them. Repeatedly. They keep coming onto my list twice in an hour. Why do you have recomendations (Pop, Rock, Hip-hop, etc.) under the Search bar if you don't use them. I'm transferring to Deezer. For good if you don't get your sh*t together.

[jreichel]

Amazing work from the team at Spotify. Truly groundbreaking technology to help me find NEW music to list.. oh wait those are the same songs already being played. directly before hand. epic. And now, if smart shuffle toggles on, and you toggle it back off, it doesn't actually clear all the songs id added from the queue. Its bad enough shuffle isn't a true shuffle anymore, and top play songs get preference, but geez. I just want to listen to a selected playlist in a random order, without interruption. A song I didn't expect is honestly worse than the ads in your free version. 

ENABLE A TOGGLE FOR SHUTTING OFF SMART SHUFFLE. IF I WANTED SOMEONE/SOMETHING TO RECCOMEND MUSIC TO ME, I WOULD TUNE IN TO AN FM RADIO STATION. I WANT MY MUSIC, THAT I SELECTED, WHEN I SELECT IT. Get to work team. 

[goldenegg]

Seriously, how they heck can I disable Smart Shuffle for good? I gave it a chance, and it's been a miserable few weeks. It's worse than the Spotify DJ feature. You'll get the same song "smart shuffled" into your mix after like 3 songs it was last shuffled in.

No tutorials I'm trying online will shut this Smart Shuffle feature off, especially permanently. How is there no button or toggle available anywhere in the UI or Settings?

Me thinks this is on purpose so that whatever suit that thought of it can sit in the next meeting and go  "Look at how much engagement we still have with users still using Smart Shuffle?", but bruh...we can't get out of it. "Look at how many people love the hole we dug!" ....dude, we keep falling in & can't get out. We. DO NOT. love the hole. We. DO NOT. like Smart Shuffle.

The only way I can imagine the reason there's no Off Button is because it's by design. When you make a door you put a handle on both sides unless you want ppl stuck on the other side, that or you just don't know how to build a door.

Please fix this.

[gmantsang]

Hello i accidentally disliked a suggestion that I liked but I don’t remember the song name how can I get that back

[HHughes_]

Please let me completely disable smart shuffle 

[jreichel]

Me: *button smashes shuffle to turn off smart shuffle for the fifth time this morning*

Spotify: "Aw we know what you were going for! Here's the perfect setup. Only smart shuffle songs. YES!"

Also insane that these are almost all songs I've already listened to before and decided not to add to any of my playlists. Imagine being this bad at AI...

[CAIDENROX]

This garbage feature keeps reenabling itself everytime I use shuffle. I turn off smart shuffle only for it to turn itself back on 5 seconds later. 

I would literally rather use a different music streaming service than be jerked around and made to listen to songs I don't care about.

Give me the option to disable smart shuffle or I'll just disable my Spotify account.

[CAIDENROX]

This garbage feature keeps reenabling itself everytime I use shuffle. I turn off smart shuffle only for it to turn itself back on 5 seconds later. 

I would literally rather use a different music streaming service than be jerked around and made to listen to songs I don't care about.

Give me the option to disable smart shuffle or I'll just disable my Spotify account.

[strerd]

When it comes time at the end of the year, I hope they figure out an explation as to why the same 8 songs are prominent.

'You really liked XXXX song. You've played it 4318 times'. 

It's not that, you've taken away the option to change it.

[doramagnea93]

Please bring back the enhance feature!

And most importantly, for the love of god, add a setting option to DISABLE smart shuffle. We all hate it anyway.
Frankly, it seems you are not listening to this community at all. EVERYONE has been complaining about this feature for almost TWO YEARS now and you haven't made it possible yet to disable it.

I'll say like so many others, if you won't fix this I'll just get an account somewhere else.

[sailingfms]

Smart shuffle is awful. Why is there not an ability to disable? I am going to go to Apple music or Tidal soon if y'all don't fix this. Really awful.

[sunnalind123]

PLEASE for the love of god, listen to your users. I'm getting soooo tired of having to turn of smart shuffle every **bleep**ing time I want to listen to my playlists..

[strerd]

I've set Dua Lipa & other artists to not play. I like their music, but to not play over & over, ad infinitum. Every 9 songs is too much. People who're being tortured should not be forced to listen to it over & over, & yet you force it on your listener who can cancel their account anytime.

[Vyers]

Apparently some day isn't two damn years later in 2024. Every TWO TO THREE SONGS, smart shuffle TURNS ITSELF ON EVEN WHEN I DISABLE IT REPEATEDLY. If I wanted to be RECOMMENDED SONGS I wouldn't be listening to a playlist I SPECIFICALLY HAND PICKED. I PAY MONEY for SEVERAL ACCOUNTS to be PREMIUM TO AVOID RANDOM SONGS. Yet here we are, 2024 and I'm paying to have you advertise artists to me I didn't ask for.

[ambrosebierce]

Smart shuffle is extremely annoying since none of your recommendations ever came close to what I like. They seem to be purely commercially driven and frankly in my main playlist (4400 songs) which I use all the time there are practically no songs which ever bothered the charts and even musixmatch which supplies the lyrics do not have them for the majority of songs I listen to.

[strerd]

If all other thinng are working by all means mess with somethings one person out of 100 will use. My Spotify app has been crashing non-stop. I've tried rebooting my phone, closing out of Spotify & it keeps happening. I've had it crash 12 times over the last day.

[user-removed]

It's 2024, and as a premium user I have no way of turning smart shuffle off and forever. Smart Shuffle uses data I did not give permission for Spotify to use. I only want to play my downloaded songs, not steam irrelevant songs I have no interest listening to. I should not have to put the app into offline only mode to avoid this; only to later have to deal with the app not working because I finally have it working the way I want it to after 30 days because I forgot it's in offline mode. I pay for this platform, to use it as intended to only have it shovel more garbage down my throat. If iTunes worked without needing to constantly update their suite of garbage apps I would have never switched. This machine learning phase that started at the end of 2023 that's bleeding into 2024 masked as artificial intelligence is a cancer for users and consumers.

I'm not interested in any updates for this article until it specifies the key words "Turn Smart Shuffle Off Permanently".

[nickdeb]

Horrible feature, please make impactful changes to your platform an option. Not something you force upon your paying users.

While testing, you did not notice how this feature could be very annoying to users?

[strerd]

Please fix your app from crashing every 2nd song (seriously - EVERY. 2ND. SONG.). 'Smart' Shuffle is not worth it when everything crashes around it.

[diverpaul]

Employee just before their annual report. Suprised their user name isn't Noto Employo Spotifyo.