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.

[jasper]

Shuffle isn't much of a shuffle if it plays your songs in the EXACT SAME ORDER EVERY TIME.  Shuffle needs to reset its play order so it plays songs in playlists randomly vs. the same order every time.

[cgav96]

I have the same problem, every time I start the app. the same music it played yesterday will play today and tomorrow almost in the same order. I have hundreds of songs and I keep on hearing only a few of them, I have to keep o advancing manually if I wan to hear something different.

Can you improve the randomness of the playing?

[user-removed]

Hey!

Total and big AGREE to this.

[RoninTheOrigina]

Good to see I'm not the only one.  I don't understand why more music players don't do this.

[Lea]

Don't know if you've already thought about this, but the fact that the same song was played twice, can simply be a result of that song actually being in that playlist twice, that you've added it more than once. That happens to me, and I find the double-track and just remove it from my playlist.

[RoninTheOrigina]

Lea, to be fair, I just went through my list, and found a handful(3-4) of duplicates, HOWEVER, they're not ones I that I specifically recall repeating themselves.

[Glitch]

Another problem with Spotify's shuffle function in my opinion is that it tends to play songs by the same artist one after the other. This is actually rather frustrating to me, as for example on iTunes, I never had this problem.

In other words, if I have a massive playlist that is on shuffle, I don't want to listen to the same artist's songs twice or even three times in a row. I don't know if anyone else agrees with me on this but this is certainly how I feel.

[kelvin0mql]

It seems there are particular songs/artists that Spotify likes more than I do. I only get one star in Spotify. Boolean. Binary. Either I like it or I don't. That doesn't match reality... there are some songs I'd like to 5-star and want to hear more often (in this regard, I am perhaps unlike the original poster). There are others I'd like to 2-star and hear a bit less often.

Thing is, there are songs I really really really like, and I've starred them, and I've mobile-sync'd them, yet Spotify doesn't want to play them. But holy cow Spotify loves to play Aerosmith!!

Then heaven forbid I want to specifically search for one on Spotify iPhone app. Hey, folks, I starred-and-sync'd it because I want to hear it (at least as often as Aerosmith).

[DennyEMufc]

Good issue and i agree, i also get the same artist tracks a real deal shuffle would be much better ........

[RoninTheOrigina]

kelvin0mql, I completely understand what you're looking for.  And I would be pro that feature as well, but perhaps as a feature for random.  I'm all for including both shuffle (as explained in my original post) and random with preference given to songs I deem more worthy.