Opinion: Spotify shuffle mode needs some urgent attention

Good music can easily send you to places you can only dream of, which explains why it’s often said that music is the bridge between earth and heaven.

Granted, it’s only fair that you control how you listen to your favorite tunes at any given moment regardless of the platform or device in use.

While Spotify is undoubtedly the leader when it comes to music streaming, it isn’t perfect. In fact, none of Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal, YouTube Music and even Amazon Music is perfect.

And neither is anyone. Or anything for that matter.

But there’s always room to improve, and one thing that Spotify needs to desperately improve is shuffle mode. On its day, it makes listening to music a great experience. Unfortunately, it hardly ever works.

What’s even more frustrating is this isn’t a new issue. Spotify users have been venting for years about the broken shuffle mode, but the company seems to care less.

Out of my 400+ collection of songs, Spotify never makes the slightest attempt to play even a third of them despite turning on shuffle mode. For anyone who loves music, you understand the pain of how annoying this can be.

There were some reports a while back that suggested Spotify had finally addressed this long-standing glitch. But it didn’t take long before contradicting claims surfaced.

As I pen this, Spotify is also investigating a case where two of the last few songs will keep playing repeatedly in the event that some songs get removed from a queue when shuffle mode is enabled.

Some of these sentiments have also been echoed by our very own Dwayne Cubbins, who also says Spotify’s shuffle mode hasn’t been flawless for him especially in recent months.

And indeed, the number of growing reports in the Spotify subreddit adds even more weight to this argument.

We have to do something about the shuffle feature. I can’t tolerate the feature anymore. It only prioritizes the song you accidentally listen to and nothing else. I have a vast playlist with 1.5k songs and it only plays the same 50 songs. I am so tired of it. We have to start a Twitter hashtag or a petition or something of some sort because I see the complaint all the time and I’m so sick of it. Something has to happen.
Source

Do Better Spotify…When will true shuffle come. why is it I have +1000 songs but it only shuffles the same 120 songs
Source

for the love of god or whatever you believe in, can you please fix the shuffle?
Source

There’s just something that comes with listening to a song you did not intend to listen to and still find it very entertaining. This is what shuffle mode is supposed to be, but it just doesn’t always work.

According to Spotify, shuffle comes in handy when you want to mix up what plays next when listening to long playlists, switch up your listening, or when you just don’t feel like following orders.

However, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Besides repeating the same songs, it seems shuffle isn’t 100% random and instead, it depends on song popularity and your listening history. If anything, this is smart shuffle.

The continued inconsistency with Spotify’s shuffle mode while the company turns a blind eye has propelled a disgruntled user into developing a custom solution.

With the help of an app known as Virtual Shuffle, Android users can now enjoy true shuffle on Spotify by forcing the platform into streaming random songs rather than relying on listening history or popularity of songs.

This app is also available to use with the web version of Spotify, but as you may have already guessed, iOS misses out. The latter bit adds emphasis on why this shouldn’t even be considered a viable solution to this issue.

Considering the premiums Spotify collects on a monthly basis just to access the shuffle function, it shouldn’t take this long to fix such a basic function for a company this size.

Someone at Spotify needs to do something about the shuffle button — and that too really quick. Hopefully, this is the year they do something about it.

Dear Spotify, for 2023 please can we have a shuffle mode that isn’t complete bullshit? Thanks!
Source

Do let us know your thoughts in the comments and poll below.

Featured image: Spotify

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.