Shuffle playlist is broken - here is photo evidence

[sadastronaut]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

iPhone SE 2020

Operating System

iOS 14.4

My Question or Issue

Whenever I shuffle a playlist, it typically plays the same songs from that playlist each time. For example, I shuffle playlist Feel-Good Indie Rock one day. Then I play something else. Then I go back to the Indie Rock playlist and shuffle. I will most likely here the same 10 or 11 songs despite the playlist being 200 songs. Here are screenshots of my Up Next whenever I play the playlist on shuffle. I'm playing from iPhone but took screenshots from Windows desktop Spotify client, which is synced to my phone.

As you can see, it's mostly the same songs every time.

[Ver]

Hey @sadastronaut,

Thanks for posting here in the Community 🙂

Are there any changes when you try playing your playlists or this only happens with Spotify created playlists? Once we have this info, we can investigate this further.

Keep us posted! If you have questions, you know where to find us.

[sadastronaut]

It appears to be just Spotify created playlists.

[Ver]

Hey @sadastronaut,

Thanks for getting back to us 🙂

This is an expected behavior. Some of the playlists may start shuffling the first 10 songs and then shuffle the rest of them.

We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback and will make sure to pass your feedback on to the right team as we always strive to improve our app.

If you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We'll be happy to help.

[sadastronaut]

Thank you for your response. In my view, this is not desired behavior. With the way I listen to music, I will sometimes just listen to 10 or so songs from a playlist at a time, so I don't really want to hear the same songs every time. Even if I listen to 20 songs, half of the time I'm listening to the same songs I heard last time. I think most people expect that, when they put a playlist of 50 or more songs on shuffle, they don't hear the same songs each time.

Much like a radio station. Sure, there's going to be some overlap with songs each time I turn on the station, but it won't be the same 10. (well, with FM radio maybe that's the case).

I know that I can use the skip functionality, but it is nice to not have to. There's something to be said about just pressing a button and listening.

[bradgillespie]

I see this behavior as well and I agree with sadastronaut it seems undesirable.

If listen to a playlist today for 30 mins it's the same exact 10 songs that I heard when I listened to the playlist on shuffle yesterday and the day before.

I have to skip the first 10 songs to get into new stuff. I'm seeing this with a 12 hour long Spotify playlist.

[sadastronaut]

@Ver,
Is there a way to know which playlists do this? I want to know what playlists to avoid.
Thanks.

[Eni]

Hi @sadastronaut, 

Thanks for getting back to us. 

We're afraid we don't have a list of the playlists where this happens.

On another note, you can also consider adding your +VOTE to this idea, if this is a feature you'd like to see implemented in the future. The Idea Exchange is a great way for us to see what our users are interested in and how many people like a certain idea. Check out this Spotify Answer to learn more about it.

If you need help with anything else, just let us know.

[sadastronaut]

Hi, I don't know if you can say or not, but do some artists pay money to get featured in the playlist, so that they are always played first when someone shuffles a playlist? 

The reason I ask is, if this is intended behavior, I'm not sure why. It's definitely not for the user experience aspect. The only other reason I can think of is some artists, record companies pay to have their song always played when someone shuffles. 

[Mario]

Hello @sadastronaut,

Thanks for reaching on the Community!

We understand that you are not satisfied with the way your shuffle queues are being composed for particular playlists. Let's see if we can help you improve your experience with this.

One thing you can give a try is on you mobile device, when taping on the song which is playing, and then on the queue icon to see the next up songs, you will notice that you can manually re-shuffle the songs in this  premade queue via the sliders on the left. Also, by taping on a particular song there song, you can completely remove it from the proposed shuffled queue (not the playlist itself). Removing the songs that you don't want to hear will let the algorithm stream more and more from the once you have not heard so far.

Hope you find this useful. Keep us posted if you have any questions.