@ctreitzell wrote:
@austintruchan wrote:
Oh WOW! I actually just figured it out.
To get ACTUAL Shuffle on you iPhone for all of your songs, you need to "Sort By Title", and then shuffle. If you "Sort By Recently Added" and then shuffle, Spotify will only shuffle the most recent ~50-100 songs. "Sort By Title" will shuffle your entire library.
To filter your songs, you need to scroll up in you "SONGS" page, and select the hamburger menu icon next to the filter search bar.
So glad I figured this out, but still, come on Spotify. This needs to be clearer.
Ok, 18 months later and I see this one. In Oct 2017 the choices in a playlist for this "sort by" drop down on ios 11 are
Custom
Title
Artist
Recently Added
I will give it a try. I often find Spotify will focus on re-feeding the listener whatever said listener has recently listened to, regardless of what was "recently added". I was listening to a playlist last weekend after having listened to specific artists I had purposefully searched for earlier in the week who were in that same playlist and Spotify is just refeeding me those couple of artists...and typically Spotify forces on me the most commercially popular artists within the above criteria.
OK, after another month I have found that Spotify SHUFFLE is as it has always been. If you listen to a popular-ish artist and put songs from said artist into a playlist; it doesn't matter when you make the playlist, said artist will play pretty much every other or every 3rd song.
For example, I purposefully, manually searched for and listened to Halsey's Hopeless Foountain a couple of weeks ago. Some songs I played a few times in a row. Normal listening and research. Later in the same week, I put on my 2017 Pool on SHUFFLE (playlist I created of 2017 albums) which includes Halsey's Hopeless Fountain and songs from that album played every other or every third song.
Sometimes I get tricked into thinking Spotify SHUFFLE is random, especially when I listen to one of my old Pool Playlists with 500+ songs. Just when I start to think randomness is occuring, several songs which I have overplayed in the past (usually songs I have learned to play and like to play guitar along with) will show up within the 1st 7 SHUFFLE songs.
It is clear to me: Spotify SHUFFLE is NOT random.
My experience with Spotify tells me that Spotify algorithm harvests the account holder's listening tendancy data and plays for the account holder whatever that account holder's listening tendancies are, coupled with paid promotion of certain artists and also artist popularity. Sometimes random tracks do playback with Spotify SHUFFLE which is nice. Inevitably, though, the algorithm rubs our faces (ears) in our tendancies and I find myself annoyed at the algorithm's assumption that it "knows what I want" because it doesn't!
If users want random playpack, Spotify SHUFFLE is not going to deliver unless spotify introduce a RANDOM functionality. I assume that is highly unlikely unless Spotify can find a way to monetize a RANDOM functionality. Would I pay 5 or 10 more currency units per month to get Spotify RANDOM? I would if artists were guaranteed better royalities and the functionality was one where RANDOM means play back all songs in entire playlist randomly until all songs in said playlist have played and then start over 🙂
I am not angry or cursing, I like Spotify. I do not like itunes one tiny bit. I am willing to conceed that the solution is that Spotify SHUFFLE does not playback randomly; it shuffles. If you have ever played cards, you will know the same cards keeping revealing themselves. That said, Spotify has more control over what they are feeding us than a card dealer does 🙂
Staff / Moderator/ 2 years ago in Social & Random