Implement an actual shuffle function

[RoninTheOrigina]

Yes, you read that right.  The "shuffle" function in Spotify is nothing more than a randomizer.  There's a difference?  YES.

RANDOM - Play one song.  The next song can be ANY song in your playlist.  Including the one you just listened to.  Though I've never had this specifically happen, I literally just heard the same song that I heard 2 songs ago.  This is how Spotify's "shuffle" currently functions.

SHUFFLE - Take your entire list, shuffle them (like cards), and play the first song in the shuffle.  Once finished, move that song off the pile.  Once the pile is depleted, shuffle the deck again and start over (maybe pop a message up).

I know enough about programming (not much) to know that shuffling is probably a bit harder than random, but come on.  I may be in the minority, but I don't have a lot of little playlists.  I have one list with nearly a thousand songs in it, because I like all the music, and am rarely not in the mood for one of those songs.  But what I can't stand is hearing the same song over and over again.  I think there may even be songs in my list I haven't heard yet, while I've heard others 4-5 times.

I know it may not matter much, but I would probably lay down the money for at least a year subscription if this feature was implemented.

EDIT: Another user pointed out that I can see what all is queued up in my shuffle by clicking the Play Queue link, and that Spotify supposedly sets up a rolling shuffle of 50 songs.  It would be nice if this range could be expanded to say 50-100% of your playlist.

EDIT 4/6/12: I just dealt with the same song 16 tracks later.  The song played the first time yesterday afternoon.  I went home, listened for a bit on my home PC (just a few songs), then started listening again this morning.  If the list recycles itself after a day, or if you log in from another computer, I see that as an area for improvement.

[dugarrey]

I really hate that it randomises just 50 tracks, beleive it or not, I have a lot more than 50 tracks in a playlist, and it just ends up shuffling the next 50 tracks in the playlist, from 4 albums or whatever. It's useless, and not that hard to fix. Course, that also results in a decent chance of repeating the same tracks often since it randomises close to the current tracks.

[ringlott]

Spotify random mode really sucks. There have been many updates but it is getting worse each time. I have playlists with more than 2500 songs but random mode allways play same artists and same songs so often. Random algorithm is really bad.

[SigmaX]

Please to a true shuffle function. As has been said before this just takes a block of your music and shuffles that. Usually I find it's just a few artists that it shuffles through. Last night I had the same artist 11 times in a row, and then that same artist again afew songs later. 

Couldn't you just pick a random number between 1 and the number of songs in your playlist/music. While it's possible to get the same arist 11 times in a row it's not probable. That seems like it would be a lot easier than trying to remember a list of songs and just ranomizing that. 

[raoden]

Just picking a random number won't do the trick for the following reason. Suppose you have a playlist of 100 songs and you already listened to 10 of them. Let's calculate the probability that the next 10 songs you get by picking random numbers do not repeat anything you heard before.

For the first song, there are 90 new songs out of 100, so the probability is 90%.

For the second song, there are 89 new songs out of 100, so the probability is 89%.

...

For the tenth song, there are 81 new songs out of 100, so the probability is 81%.

What's the probability that in all ten cases, you didn't get anything old? Just multiply: 0,9*0,89*...*0,81 which comes out at around 21 percent.

So, even if you listened to just a small part of your playlist: Picking a random song is *very* likely to give you one that you already heard before, eventually. If my math is correct, that is 😉

Introducing some bias by throwing some recent songs out of the selection won't solve this inherent problem.

The only chance you have is to randomly order the entire playlist once, then listen to it in that random order.

[Natball2205]

Can the shuffle only pick from the tracks least played? I drive ALOT. And all music players have a tendency to pick only a few songs to shuffle on numerous occasions. One I've noticed come up ALOT is "Kids with Guns" by Gorrilaz gets played regularly. If the shuffle could only pick the tracks least played I'd be able to hear the 1052 other tracks on my playlist before hearing that again. I believe no other music player does this. I have just become a premium member, and will stay if this feature appears. I could probably sort the programming out as well if you need it.

[Artracing]

Don't hold your breath. Not going to happen. It's broke unless you want to hear the same 50 songs over again.
I'm waiting for some lawyer with some balls, reading this, that will step up and start a class action suite, so I can get my year of subscription back.

[ZephyrusFS]

Like the OP stated, there's a difference between SHUFFLE and RANDOM. Random allows repition, Shuffle is a deck of cards. Its been years and they haven't fixed this. getting real pissed at Spotify.

[meahtenoha]

Updated: 2016-02-05

Hey folks, we have made some improvements to our shuffle algorithm that we are turning on as a default for all users. We'd love your feedback on how your shuffle experience changes after today (Feb 5, 2016). Thanks for your feedback, your comments are essential to helping us improve Spotify. 

Update Aug 2018:

Hi folks, it sounds like quite a few of you are experiencing only the top tracks in a playlist shuffling/ playing when using Connect. This has already been reported here.

We’ve given a transparent status there explaining there isn’t a current timeline for a fix. Please do leave a VOTE there if you’re experiencing the issue and a comment. We can then bring this information back internally to show the size of the issue for our users.

If however you are experiencing issues with Shuffle when not using Connect, please get back to us in this thread we've the questions we've listed and click +VOTE. Thank you! 

[Rob_C]

Thanks Meredith. Will we be asked to update the app or will the changes take place automatically?

[Artracing]

I'm skeptical, simple question. Does it play each song in a play list ONCE and then start over? I deleted everything to do with Spotify so I'll wait until I hear a user says you really fixed it.