Spotify doesn't seem to understand the concept of shuffling all. Do I need to change settings?

[Buttzerker]

So I recently got Spotify and I've started adding my favorite music to it. The problem is that whenever I try to play shuffle all it only seems to play the last one or two artists I added. It'll Shuffle between the songs by those artists, but for example I recently added Brother Ali and Murder By Death.

Despite the fact that I also have Run The Jewels, Aesop Rock, and Seether in my library, it only plays those two artists no matter how much I shuffle. Even if I just skip the song it's on it'll pretty much go through those two artists entire libraries before it'll play others.

What's the deal?

 

[badboy78660]

Curious about a solution to this as well, as I've been experiencing the same on my end (i.e. Spotify's implementation of shuffling is shit).

 

[CoolOff]

Could you guys screenshot you're shuffled queue to show how bad it is?

 

[MilkBeard]

I've had random issues with their shuffle that will persist for days, and then go back to normal. It's weird. I've looked it up a number of times, and it seems there's a pattern, as sometimes their system will shuffle only the nearest 50-100 songs in your playlist (this is different from yours, but their shuffle function seems to get broken often). It's pretty obvious when you have a list of 400+ songs and it keeps repeating a handful of songs.

It hasn't been doing it lately though.

There was a known issue where if you have your account logged into multiple devices at once, they will lock it to rotate only 50-100 songs of your playlist. This is an issue that occurs, but it's not the same as what I had, as I only use the web player and no other devices.

 

[99Luffy]

I tried the free trial and the UI is so confusing to me. I search artist. I click on a ''songs" and for some reason when I select next song it just plays the same song again. And I'll click on an album cover it just makes the album picture bigger instead of taking me to the album track list.

 

[Buttzerker]

Could you guys screenshot you're shuffled queue to show how bad it is?

Click to shrink...

Yeah how do I find that on my phone?

 

[Agent_ShortBus]

I tried the free trial and the UI is so confusing to me. I search artist. I click on a ''songs" and for some reason when I select next song it just plays the same song again. And I'll click on an album cover it just makes the album picture bigger instead of taking me to the album track list.

Click to shrink...

I had the same issue the first two times I tried it also but you just have to get in there and fumble around and once you get used to it spotify is awesome. I went down the cheap route and bought a year in a family slot on Ebay for like $7. Might wanna try that.

 

[cmagus]

Do you have the albums or songs in a playlist?

 

[TemplaerDude]

There is no solution. Spotify doesn't properly shuffle music.

 

[HeySeuss]

It has always played the most recent adds to my playlist but after the first play it goes back to the normal randomish shuffle. Its probably that the algorithm is programmed to play the most recent add because you added it because you like it and want to hear it.

The problem I have with the algorithm is that is plays one specific artist a disproportionately high amount compared to the rest of my list. For example I have 260 songs in my car list and of those, about 15 are Metallica songs. But for some reason one out every 4th song is Metallica, despite them not being the highest song count from other artists. I have more grateful dead, Johnny cash, and ray lamontagne than Metallica but they dont pop up as often.

 

[8byte]

I've never encountered this problem. But I also think I use Spotify differently from OP. I curate playlists and they seem to shuffle fine for me. Never added an entire artist though.

 

[CoolOff]

Yeah how do I find that on my phone?

Click to shrink...

On the main playing view, it's the icon up to the right with three horizontal bars, at least on Android.

 

[Buttzerker]

On the main playing view, it's the icon up to the right with three horizontal bars, at least on Android.

Click to shrink...

Well the law of demonstrations just kicked in, I hit Shuffle and took a picture and actually now it's working perfectly so this isn't really going to show my problem.

 

[Buttzerker]

Well the law of demonstrations just kicked in, I hit Shuffle and took a picture and actually now it's working perfectly so this isn't really going to show my problem.

Click to shrink...

Wait I lied. Now it's different problem. These are the songs that showing is coming up but it's not the ones that are playing.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

Is brother Ali the dominate artist?

I have multiple playlists with 100+ songs that I use shuffle on and the only stuff that gets higher plays are artists with more tracks.

 

[Deleted member 6215]

I've run into the same problem when listening to "Stations". There doesn't seem to be a way to shuffle the songs, I'm forced to listen to them in the same order or scroll down for a bit and hope I get to something new.

 

[Buttzerker]

Is brother Ali the dominate artist?

I have multiple playlists with 100+ songs that I use shuffle on and the only stuff that gets higher plays are artists with more tracks.

Click to shrink...

MBD is first, with Aesop Rock second in terms of songs I added.

 

[Shoes]

My shuffle has been garbage for ages. Besides playing the same artist multiple times in a row, I can almost guarantee that any songs I add to a playlist are either the very first or very last songs I hear, never in the middle.

Edit: Also, on the iOS app, did they get rid of the ability to play Release Radar and Discover Weekly in order? I can't seem to disable shuffle on those, which sucks when I go back through to try to save songs I liked.

 

[Deleted member 2152]

Could you guys screenshot you're shuffled queue to show how bad it is?

Click to shrink...

I don't have any problems with my shuffle.
However, Spotify's shuffle is not truly random and is algorithmic, which means they likely update/change it from time to time. Perhaps they made changes that unbalanced the weighting for you? They like to roll changes out regionally, by platform, or even by type of music you listen to.

 

[Quantum Leap]

It's been a problem forever and they always respond by saying that everything is fine and working like it should.

 

[Deleted member 2171]

It's once of the reasons i cancelled, along with the fact that playing a genre radio station will also repeat songs not even an hour apart. If I'm playing a 'radio' I should never hear repeats in a single day, let alone in the same hour, when you have a giant catalog. I'm not gonna pay money for simulated free radio

 

[Bishop89]

It seems to shuffle in the same order, or similar order during consecutive jam sessions.

Very annoying

 

[Bakercat]

I just switched as well and I had a few problems with my shuffle and repeat setting reverting back to default. I got the Spotify unlimited/Hulu student bundle for $5 a month. Save me like $12 a month

 

[HustleBun]

Yup.

They won't acknowledge it or fix it but for the past 6 years, no matter what computer, OS or Spotify account, the problem has remained the same.

Spotify will only shuffle within a tiny alphabetical range on large playlists. I can have a huge hip-hop playlist with hundreds of different artists but Spotify's shuffle only flips between songs by 2Pac and A$AP.

Folks just accept it now. Spotify official forums would say "oh there's no issue" and Spotify subreddit used to flood with complaints and people posting links to 3rd party websites for Spotify playlist shuffling but now? Now people just downvote or lock the thread.

I guess it's never going to be fixed.

 

[MegaZubat]

Spotify's shuffle only works properly on the pc desktop app for me. On mobile it works like the above posters, shuffling only a small alphabetical range of artists.

 

[Meatfist]

Spotify is a treasure, but when it comes to radio/shuffle/daily mixes it can be an absolute trash heap at times.

 

[Captain Tuttle]

I thought I was going crazy, thank you OP for this thread. I'm new to spotify and shuffle sucks, for me it's exactly as Buttzerker describes. I'm pretty disappointed actually

 

[Moppy]

I've been a Premium user for like three years and have always felt like the shuffle algorithm is kind of trash. I have around 2000 songs "saved" and will usually just play one of those and shuffle that to serve as a kind of "playlist" and the amount of repeat artists (sometimes stacked back to back) I'll have in that first 80 or so song shuffle list is crazy. Like, I don't probably have more than 15-20 songs by a single artist, and 5-10 of them will end up in that initial shuffle every time.

I assume there has to be some kind of a popularity/plays weighting involved, but I'm not sure.

 

[Auron Kale]

Been a premium user for years as well and I don't really bother with shuffling my playlists as Spotify's idea of shuffle is not what I usually want.

Apple Music seems to get it yet Spotify doesn't when it comes to playing songs at random.

 

[BreakyBoy]

Maaaaybe this is an actual Spotify bug, but it is also definitely a classic human psychology / computer science problem, and every major media delivery service has been drowned in customers complaining that "shuffle isn't random!!!" since forever

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...m-shuffle-feels-far-from-random-10066621.html

 

[Buttzerker]

Maaaaybe this is an actual Spotify bug, but it is also definitely a classic human psychology / computer science problem, and every major media delivery service has been drowned in customers complaining that "shuffle isn't random!!!" since forever

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...m-shuffle-feels-far-from-random-10066621.html

Click to shrink...

I mean maybe but it seems pretty clear cut when I have five artists on my Spotify and the first 20 songs are exclusively by the last artist I added.

 

[Deleted member 71]

Maaaaybe this is an actual Spotify bug, but it is also definitely a classic human psychology / computer science problem, and every major media delivery service has been drowned in customers complaining that "shuffle isn't random!!!" since forever

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...m-shuffle-feels-far-from-random-10066621.html

Click to shrink...

Spotify shuffle has always felt pretty bad compared to foobar and iTunes though.

 

[sgtnosboss]

I love Spotify but I have noticed this too, I hate it

 

[V23]

Hate this so much! It'll always play my playlists in the same order despite me selecting "shuffle play". I only use the free tier so I assumed it was intentionally shitty so that you would be more likely to pay for premium where you can select which song to play.

 

[Porco Rosso]

Shuffle works great for me... until I cast Spotify to a device. On my phone, I won't hear the same artist twice for a very long time. But all of a sudden, if I cast Spotify to something like my Echo, I can literally see the queue change to just 2 or 3 artists. It's infuriating and insane.

 

[Vagabond]

One playlist has a tendency to keep reverting back to one particular artists' songs and play her songs back to back. On a 250-song playlist, I added Solange's album - and maybe only half the album at that - but it will always play through all of her songs I have for her in the first 40 tracks - and throw a song where she's featured in there in the mix which is way separate from her album on the playlist. I thought I was crazy. Whenever a song of hers popped up on the playlist I readied my finger to hit next because it seems to invariably play another song or two or three from her before playing another artist and eventually playing another couple of her songs in a row.

 

[SweetVermouth]

Well the law of demonstrations just kicked in, I hit Shuffle and took a picture and actually now it's working perfectly so this isn't really going to show my problem.

Click to shrink...

Yo the hell is ZZZ Top?
Is it like ZZ Top but even older? With longer beards?

 

[Buttzerker]

Yo the hell is ZZZ Top?
Is it like ZZ Top but even older? With longer beards?

Click to shrink...

Its an Aesop Rock song. Pays tribute/makes references to a lot of artists, ZZ Top included.

 

[Brazil]

This has always been a problem in Spotify, and it seems like it'll never be fixed, as they don't acknowledge it.

 

[Jombie]

It's been a thing since I've used it. It's not rare I'll get 3 songs in a row from the same album.

 

[makingmusic476]

Shuffle algorithms always seem borked. I noticed that in Google Music it'd only play songs *after* the song I was on when I hit shuffle.

So if I started on a song near the end of a very large playlist (because that's the one I wanted to listen to) and hit shuffle, it'd only shuffle the the handful of songs after that. Could be literally 3 songs out of 100+.

 

[patientzero]

Can we also complain about the 10,000 song limit for saved music/artists?

 

[Quantum Leap]

Can we also complain about the 10,000 song limit for saved music/artists?

Click to shrink...

wtf that's a lot, last time i tried to download my library it only let me do 3,333

 

[Ambient80]

Apple Music does weird shit with shuffle too. Sometimes it'll just put like 4-5 songs in a loop for no apparent reason. It especially likes to do this when I'm transitioning between audio sources, say from my car stereo to my headphones. Super annoying

 

[TheDestructiveSquirrel]

I think it may favour songs/artists you listen to often, like mine does shuffle pretty well but seems to play some artists more than others because I tend to not skip those artists when they come on

 

[keenerz]

Yeah between Spotify and Apple Music both of them have mediocre shuffling. Oddly the best "radio/shuffle" I've dealt with his from Pandora, but everything else lacks a little.

 

[patientzero]

wtf that's a lot, last time i tried to download my library it only let me do 3,333

Click to shrink...

Not talking about downloads. I mainly only use the desktop client and am always connected so I see no need to.

Over the summer I was adding a few fairly prolific artists to my favorites and ran into the limit. It can be circumvented a tad by saving things to playlists but it's still an utterly pointless limit.

https://www.youredm.com/2018/07/12/spotify-10000-song-limit/

 

[hobblygobbly]

Basically the algorithm is weighted to play the songs you like more frequently... how it determines that we don't 100% know, we do know some things influence it like if you skip a song from an artist, it changes the weight of that artist but there is more to it than just, but we do know it takes that result and uses it for weighting in the shuffle algorithm. As we all know, that's not what we want shuffle to do. The songs we add to a playlist we like already, people want to hear a variety of the playlist, not a small selection where there are repeats or where it focuses way too much on one artist.

People have been complaining about this for a long time, it's so dumb that free software like foobar does it much better. I've actually gone back to using my own library again - I just buy the music and then download it (a lot of metal labels are now on Bandcamp too, super simple), I sync my music across my devices via cloud service (any should work), and just point foobar to the directory. I sync the playlist files along with it too.

 

[ThatWasAJoke]

How hard can it be to develop a shuffling algorithim

 

[cabot]

Yeah, this is definitely an issue. There's some weighting on the shuffle going on.


I have a playlist of 900 songs and it's about 1-5 songs of artists I really like, and I normally get multiple listens of one artist in a short session, or artists whose albums I have listened to recently play more often when shuffling this playlist.



Spotify should let you dictate conditions for shuffle in self-made playlists. Seems to be a solution that would maybe not affect their dumb algorithms as much.


If Spotify say there's no problem, then they should allow you to have detailed stats on playlists. Show us with numbers.