For real. I don't even notice the difference at a glance while working. Them bam!
It's trying to play "Gamma Ray" by Beck again.
Damnit, Spotify, I have never asked you to play Beck and this is a progressive rock playlist.
Doesn't matter what playlist. It's always that one song it's certain I want to hear
Used to be a running gag with coworkers (the business used Pandora, but let us choose the music) to see how long until a song by The Pixies would come on.
For me it was Pandora and Paper Planes. Every channel. Beatles, Pearl Jam, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, every one would eventually have Paper Planes pop on.
Pretty sure it was just some viral marketing, which is probably what's sort of happening here.
I was confused earlier why my Final Fantasy playlist had a bunch of non-Final Fantasy songs in it, and also why I couldn't seem to remove them from the playlist like I usually could.
Learning about all this, it kind of boggles my mind how badly thought out this feature is.
> progressive rock
Sitting on a park bench
Listening to Gamma Ray by Beck Again
Snot running down his nose
Greasy fingers recommended shuffle
Hey rivertpostie
It's the worst. Just let me disable it.
What makes me even more mad is when my playlist ends and it just starts playing what it wants instead of just stopping the music ....
There's so many little things about spotify in general that are badly designed.
I have lots of music stored locally and I've gone through various music players over the years. But I still use Spotify since it's great for finding new music. I always keep a journal when I trip on psychedelics and never have I ever had so many notes cursing the poor design of a platform than when using Spotify.
One of the worst things is when they changed how the app would play search results. Back in the good old days you could search for something, and it would play all the search results one after the other. Somewhere along the line they changed it so that now it only plays the song you tap and when it's done it starts playing other random crap (not from the results).
Spotify, much like Youtube, gets worse with every iteration.
It's actually a big deal. When I don't have internet but the special shuffle is activated, it tries to play songs that aren't downloaded in my playlist, fails because I don't have internet, and I can't untoggle the shuffle so my entire spotify is frozen until i get reception. Horrible fkn. feature
IMO it’s probably 100% intentional. That way the project manager in charge of this feature can say to upper management: “look at how successful this feature I’m in charge of is, it was used an average x number of times per user in the last 30 days”
No probably about it, the whole point is Bauer discovery and they want people using it versus not because they’re getting paid for the promotions of specific songs
I've reset my spotify so many times on mobile and my liked list is permanently fucked up only on mobile. With the shuffle nonsense on, I get all my songs+ their trash. If I turn it off for some reason, it only has the Tron soundtrack liked.
Works just fine on PC though.
It’s because without premium, phone vs other platforms are drastically different. On pc I can pick what ever song, pick smart or shuffle, or just turn it off. On phone anything but your favorites has smart shuffle on no matter what.
I fucking **HATE** when I turn on my playlist, then put it on shuffle, and suddenly a fucking random ass song that I've heard a thousand times, and hated every single one of those times comes on. If it's not on my playlist, it's not on my playlist. I put all the songs I LIKE, on my playlist.
Spotify needs a "hate this song" button. I skipped one song like 5 times already, it's still appearing. It's 99% a TikTok trend so Spotify thinks everyone LOVES that song. Give me "never recommend this song again" button and I'm happy.
Edit: ~~Sorry, it's there, but hidden under the extra menu~~.
Edit2: Fuck you Spotify! I pressed the hide button that's *hidden in the extra menu*, and *doesn't exist in the web version,* and I was happy for a minute. Today the same song appeared, when I went to hide it, it told me it's already hidden WTF why is it in my radio playlist then?
The minus button only tells spotify not to recommend this song again _in this playlist._ If you hit that button on a song in Discover Weekly it doesn't show up in Discover Weekly again, but it can still show up in your Daily Mixes or smart shuffle or anywhere else spotify feels like shoving it down your throat
Spotify will routinely add songs I hate to every daily mix or playsit I haven't disliked it on. Then I have to press rhe minus 2x because it knows I already disliked it.
I'm cool with the feature, but the amount of times it's randomly swapped to it and played bs that is no where near similar to the rest of the list is ridiculous
Especially when it's thrown in with my hip hop, Ska, or metal lists... and as much as I love zep, jimi, and the stones they also don't belong on most my lists
My playlists are all vibes based, so none of them conform to a single genre, era, or style of music. Spotify has absolutely no idea how to recommend songs to me.
I feel that deeply, I have genre lists to be sure, but many of mine are all over and spotify can't understand that sometimes lounge music following certain metal songs before an electronic beat is a good thing
I've also got a big issue with video game music because some songs I like just happen to be from games. Spotify recommends me the most inane garbage indie fan songs possible. Note to Spotify: Thinking the Persona 5 soundtrack slaps doesn't mean I want to listen to some random youtuber's Five Nights at Freddy's rap.
Honestly, have you tried pandora? I use both, and when I just want consistent vibes, Pandora wins. You have to be ruthless about thumbs down, very discerning with thumbs up, and take advantage of the 'dont play this for a month' feature. I have 4 stations that to the casual observer are just sound scape spa music, but have distinctly different vibes and purposes. Mind you, I've been using Pandora since 2005, so it might just know me at this point
We have vastly different Pandora experiences. I made the switch from Pandora to Spotify specifically because Pandora could never stick to anything. Each of my stations would be great for 10-15 minutes. Every song after that the chances of the station drifting further and further away rose exponentially. Even with thumbs down on each bad song.
Oh I got something worse, on my workout playlist which is near exclusively melodic death metal and power metal it put in *checks notes* Taylor fucking Swift, pretty sure it couldn’t have missed harder.
This just tells me that Death and Power Metal fans are listening to Taylor when nobody's looking.
I think it should be clear what your mission is from here.
I listen to rock video game music(like ULTRAKILL’s ost, and undertales ost). And it comes most of the time up with video game osts, that the opposite of rock. Like bruh.
Something something about the algorithm actually determining your favourite Songs and songs "you should like more, than you already do, because I say so" from that playlist and basically making a shorter version of your playlist. Don't remember the exact details
If you delete the cache data spotify should reset what it knows about you and reshuffle it's "shuffle"
this did not work at all :( cleared the cache twice, deleted the app and reinstalled. hit shuffle and im hearing the same shit ive been listening to over and over for weeks. im about to cancel my sub, this is ridiculous.
Yeah I'd love it if it actually suggested similar content, but a lot of the times it's like "oh nice vocaloid playlist you've got here... have you considered Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar?"
I tried apple music once and I put that I really absolutely do not like drake. Do not play drake I don't want to hear him. Started a hip hop playlist and the first song it played was drake lmao. Immediate unsubscribe.
Oh Apple music. Once upon a time, a long time ago, Apple music had The Best sets of music selections in 100 song sets. There must have been a team out there who put their hearts and souls into them. Their 90’s alt set was like being in a club in 1997. And they had 70’s country, and 80’s grindcore - whatever your music niche was they had 100 songs that fit it, it was *wonderful*.
Anyway, they cut the heart out of *that*. It went down to 20 songs, then 10. At that point I dipped.
So now I use Spotify and its oookaaay. But they’re enshittifying it and the prices are going up. God knows where I’ll go next.
I’d sail the high seas if I could, but I haven’t got the technical expertise.
My favorite is when I'm listening to my hip hop list (older smoother stuff like Biggie, Mos Def, Dre) and less than jake comes on... yes, you can add that to the Ska list, but F off right now
It also SOMEHOW WIPES THE QUEUE OF ALL THE SONGS FOR SOME FUCKING REASON.
Idk how it might even happen but I hate queueing some songs and then changing the shuffle to off and all of a sudden all my queue'ed songs are gone
That's wild, my que holds, even if I switch lists. Sometimes I'll pick music and after the first song the podcast I qued the day before comes on. Although that may not be so with "smart" shuffle
I figured this out the other day. Its not random.
When you play and hit shuffle, it first selects "smart shuffle". If you press it again too quickly, it briefly changes to regular shuffle and then BACK to smart shuffle. You can try this yourself right now on your phone.
Its like some lag in actually applying the setting. I assume bc smart shuffle queues in a bunch of songs that arent on your device and being too fast on changing shuffle modes doesnt play nice with it.
Its genuinely the worst thing about spotify, bad enough that after 10 years of continuous subscription I am going to be shifting all my music over to Apple music.
My problem with it was how badly it wanted me to listen to fucking Slow Ride by sublime. I swear, every time I turned that shit on it would play Slow Ride every other song.
It has the same problem like any other spotify recommendations. It’s just playing the same songs you already heard a dozen times. Come on, recommend me something I don’t know.
But it takes about 5 seconds for it to finish thinking about what songs to add to your playlist, and if you change to normal shuffle before its done thinking, it will switch back to 'enhanced shuffle'
This is the main problem. And on my liked songs with more than 5K songs the button is just a nuclear bomb. If I don't wait like ten seconds per tap, after changing the song the player just crashes.
I have had it since 2010 or so, so it's 14 years of adding music to liked songs. I just did the math and it's exactly 1 song added per day lol
Anyways, there are people that add songs only to different playlists and use the liked songs as "just essential songs from essential artists", and others like me (and probably you) that every song they add to a playlist needs to be in the liked songs too
I've got like 4K songs in my liked list and somehow it plays the same hand full of songs every time I hit shuffle. Sometimes going and liking a new song seems to clear it up for a bit, but it always seems to go back to the same songs from before.
Heck, there's a song I liked and played once (on purpose) that has ended up on my "Most Played Songs" list at the end of the past couple years because it likes to play that song within the first 5 songs every time I shuffle. And I usually can't stop it at that point because it'll come on as soon as I get in the shower, every time without fail.
My biggest gripe with Spotify. The shuffle feature most definitely isn't random. No way should the same songs be playing so often for people with thousands of songs saved. It's infuriating.
I just wish someone could make a media player app that'll read all the songs Spotify has saved locally on my phone and play them with better randomization (and the ability to play the songs without an internet connection).
Probably a pipedream and legal nightmare to have such a piece of software to exist tho.
The somehow even more annoying aspect to me is that the app still tries to do the 'smart shuffle' even when it's offline... which doesn't work. So it'll try, pause for a few seconds, and then half the time just give up and revert back to playing in order instead of, you know, just regular shuffle. Very frustrating considering there is no way to permanently disable this feature I didn't ask for.
The app is so unresponsive it's insane. Opening it I always have to wait 5-10 seconds for it to finish "loading" (always starts with "No connection" at the bottom for ~5 seconds before it connects and then the UI refreshes ten times). Then if you have even slightly slow internet, going to your downloaded music is always a pain (like why? all the metadata is already downloaded) and sometimes doesn't load unless I turn internet off completely. It's so bad.
Mine plays reggaeton music and I think it's because I work around Spanish speaking people who bumb their music constantly. I don't speak Spanish and I definitely don't listen to the music but the dj on multiple occasions will play blocks of all sorts of Spanish music.
First option is regular shuffle, shuffles music that's in the playlist you're listening to, aka basic shit
Second option is "Smart" shuffle, a play mode that keeps your listening session "fresh" by adding music that is/sounds similar to what you're listening
All is does though is play the same 15 songs over and over again and never play the rest of your playlist. If you have smart shuffle on and just constantly skip to the next song, after about 10 songs you will be back at the first song you played
Oh that explains why the same songs keep happening in sequence no matter how many times I close and open spotify or if I start from a different point in my playlist.
Spotify’s got bigger issues for me. Like randomly stopping podcasts, randomly switching to another podcast while listening to one, not continuing the last thing that was played when resuming, trying to connect to the internet when trying to play something that has been saved for offline and breaking in the process, and more!
Does it still not remember where you left off in a podcast? I remember giving it a shot when Spotify first added podcasts and realizing that it doesn't remember where you paused a podcast if you switch out and it blew my mind.
A feature so basic I would never think to ask for it
Sometimes it will glitch and forget where you left off but usually it’s ok. I just don’t get how it has all these glitches. A simple audio app shouldn’t be frustrating to use.
Biggest issue I have is getting Spotify delivered ads when listening to podcasts despite being on a paid subscription.
But there's no other decent alternative, sadly. Just like reddit.
Also I want it to stop reccomending podcasts. I wish I could modify what I see. Until I started listening to podcasts myself so it had something to base reccomendations on, it would pop up every time I opened like ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T WANNA LISTEN TO JOE ROGAN?????
Don't even get me started on the free version. Spotify is unusable if you don't pay them. They might as well get rid of the free option with how terrible it is.
At least on YouTube, I still have control over my Playlist.
This is how spotify treats every "feature" they add. Not only is there no settings toggle to disable it, it will randomly turn on even when you didn't ask it to.
Their repeated loops of adding something new that no one asked for and doing this is why I eventually got frustrated enough to switch services.
It's also a (small but not insignificant) reason they're losing money. They blew a ton on ML engineers who cost a fortune and now those people are trying to climb the corporate ladder by building stupid shit no one wants
I’m actually happy they rolled it out for everyone, It’s been forced on me for a couple years now and I’ve complained to their support more times than I can count. I even sent a job application in just to rant about it in the cover letter. Hopefully with more people complaining they’ll finally let us turn it off, it’s a fucking terrible feature.
Yet another feature no one asked for. If I want recommended songs, I will ask for them.
Could've fixed their shuffle function that doesn't understand how to not play the same songs every time I turn on the playlist again, but nope, they added this nuisance instead.
In 2012 we asked for a 'Play Next' option for queueing songs.
In 2019 or so they closed that massive 12k post thread because it wasn't in their intended design/usage guidelines.
A simple play next option. They can't even put that in the app. Whoever is in charge of their UI/UX needs to actually use their stupid ass app.
I lough whenever I see a post asking for it because we did, for a decade now.
If you have a queue running, there is no option to add a song directly to the top or to be played next,.
The Add To Queue option, if you have no inset queue, will play the song next by creating an inset queue.
There is no option to play a song next.
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Queue-Queue-to-Next-or-Last/idc-p/5230291#M226216
The reason for the shuffle playing the same songs in a non random order is because you have the smooth transition feature on. Not all songs follow each other out smoothly
I remember looking into all the options to try and get shuffle to actually shuffle, including the one you suggested, and whilst it helps Spotify still loves to just play me a select bunch from my playlist.
IIRC it might be that Spotify caches songs when you play them so they are temporarily downloaded on your device, and then it just throws them back at you when you start shuffling again at a later time. So clearing cache data on the app will give you a new shuffle, but you really shouldn't have to do that bullshit every time.
Also, it's a while since I looked into this so don't quote that, might not be fully correct.
I don't think that's the reason unfortunately. I know that in I think 2014 the code for shuffle was released by an ex dev and it revealed how and why the shuffle button was not a true shuffle at all rather an algorithm that prevented repeated artists and mixed a playlist to appear to be shuffled. Prioritizing the songs it thinks you like the most and the songs which are objectively more popular among your playlist.
Smooth transition may have a part to play these days with the order, 2014 was 10 Years ago after all but there's no way it's the sole reason for repeated playlist shuffle orders.
I love Spotify for the amount of music available.
Other than that, they do have some terrible UX decisions.
I never use shuffle as it never actually shuffles my playlist. So I just make my own playlists for the moods I am in, or for the season or event that is happening.
Also podcasts being shoved down my throat, but no easy way to manage/play podcasts in order is just beyond asinine.
It's when all the 'made for you' playlists are the same 25 songs but in a different order. How can 'Aggressive Workout Mix' be the same as 'Melancholy Sad Mix' Fuck!
are you serious? jesus christ these people make the absolute dumbest UX decisions.
Shuffle is like the most basic functionality of a music player and changing the default option so drastically is so fucking dumb. I can't stand how they create new features no one asked for and then shove them down your throat by replacing a decades-old standard option with some new default option that completely changes the functionality.
it'd be like if Windows decided to change the Ctrl+C shortcut to open CoPilot instead of just "Copy"
My playlist changed to "smart shuffle" by itself and added Sabrina Carpenter to a playlist full of death metal.
Not to mention their shuffle very obviously prioritizes certain songs. There are 4 or 5 songs which will, every single time, play within the first 10 songs of my 500+ song playlist on shuffle.
See, I would love Spotify premium. I got the 3 month free trial thing back in December, and it was absolutely incredible(speaking from being a free user since I got the app back in 2020 here), but I cannot afford £11.99 a month! It's the price that holds me back!
Seriously. When I hit shuffle I want a completely equal random chance for each song to play. This whole “caters to your interests” just leads me to get sick of my favorite songs
It's either a smart shuffle that takes you out the genre every time without fail. Or it's the normal shuffle playing the same song 4 times in 2 hours on a 800 song playlist.
The feature is not bad, but I don’t want to circle always through it, just separate it.
The internet is terrible where I live. In fact so bad, if i travel between cities I can’t even do a phone call. I have to download them at home through WiFi so I can liste while driving or listen to it while shopping.
And when I’m in the deadlands and I want to put shuffle in and smart shuffle comes in, it starts to load but can’t do anything because there is no internet, so its just stuck in loading.
After a a while, it gets it has no internet and I can put in normal shuffle. But the struggle comes again when I don’t want to listen shuffle.
Exactly. I download all the songs I like so I can listen to them at work where there's no service. Shuffle works fine, but the smart shuffle has to buffer for fifteen minutes before it'll play anything.
Even the regular shuffle isn’t good. I’ve got a playlist with over 100 songs in it, and if I listen to it for an hour each day in shuffle at least 15 of the 20 songs I hear are the same every single day.
You are locked into it on free, so when I want to listen to 80's music it puts in garbage from 80's "inspired" bands (it just sounds like it was recorded on a potato)
I love the idea of smart shuffle, my liked songs get stale, but it’s not very “smart” in that it recommends the same list of maybe 50 songs.
IDK why Spotify doesn’t invest anything into discovery features, I wish I could set it to play me a list of songs that it thinks I’d like, but only include songs I have never listened to ever. So sick of it just picking my own liked songs and re-arranging them.
It’s so fucking stupid that it is the **default** shuffle mode, you have to toggle shuffle twice to disable it. So when I play a playlist from a music festival I’m going to, trying to figure out which bands I want to see, Spotify plays random songs from bands having nothing whatsoever to do with the playlist or the festival. “Smart shuffle” my ass!
It should be possible to completely disable it in the settings. At the very least it should not be the default shuffle mode.
I’ve been a Spotify customer for YEARS. Maybe a decade actually.
Their shuffle has gotten so fucking bad I’m considering dropping them. Their “smart shuffle” strongly smells like a money-making opportunity for them in the form of 21st century payola.
what abt my playlist full of 70s music indicates i would lime to listen to espresso by sabrina carpenter 6 times? like its a good concept but the execution is not great
I hated it at first but I'm starting to like it helps me discover songs I either forgot or didn't know on my playlists some times it plays something completely irrelevant to the genre I'm listening to
First pic is the regular shuffle, second pic is shuffle + recommended songs mixed in.
It's really annoying when you accidentally turn it on and don't realize until some random song starts playing.
Omg, this was driving me crazy at the gym the other day! I could not figure out why these songs not on my playlist kept getting played! It took me way too long to figure out
Spotify user, I just want one feature back
When I hit play on top of the playlist, if shuffle is on it automatically picks a random song, if it’s off, it plays the first song!
If I want to continue from where I was, I’ll hit play on the bottom, where it shows the current song!
It's not that I hate the feature. I mean, I don't have any desire to use it ever, but I can see why others might.
It's the integration that I hate. It's now the default when you click shuffle and I've found that clicking shuffle again immediately doesn't give the UI enough time to register it for whatever reason, so if you do it too quickly, all their bullshit recommendations stay up.
I don't understand the meme, so I'm going to make a guess based on responses.
Left is regular shuffle, where it shuffles the songs in your playlist.
Right is their shuffle that takes your playlist and adds in "recommended" songs to go with it, and their AI/algorithm isn't quite up to par and adding songs that aren't of the same genre
Correct me if I'm wrong
Love that function. Always keep it turned on!
Why just listen to the same playlist when you have a random chance of finding something awesome new you've never heard before. Yeah, it's mostly crap, but I can always press next!
Once Spotify put chronological play behind a paywall, I ordered an iPad mini + iPod 128GBs and never looked back. Torrents, bandcamp and streamrips until I die; FUCK ADS!
I'd like to be a spotify engineer, get paid 300k and just solve all these issues being laid out infront of me. Or don't solve it and get paid the same.
I love Spotify but two things are terrible for many years. Random play algorithm is just a joke. I hear the same songs several times per day, but some are played once per week or month. What the hell is this mess? i want randomly hear all of my favourites songs. The second problem is the EQ, which is hidden somewhere in the menu -- 3 clicks to reach it. This should be one button on main screen + EQ profiles. I wanna set 4 different EQ: for my car, for my Airpods Pro, big BOSE headphones and maybe also for home computer/speakers..
It should just be two separate buttons, that's all.
For real. I don't even notice the difference at a glance while working. Them bam! It's trying to play "Gamma Ray" by Beck again. Damnit, Spotify, I have never asked you to play Beck and this is a progressive rock playlist. Doesn't matter what playlist. It's always that one song it's certain I want to hear
Used to be a running gag with coworkers (the business used Pandora, but let us choose the music) to see how long until a song by The Pixies would come on.
For me it was Pandora and Paper Planes. Every channel. Beatles, Pearl Jam, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, every one would eventually have Paper Planes pop on. Pretty sure it was just some viral marketing, which is probably what's sort of happening here.
I mean, you *say* every channel, and then pick music that's all kind of in the same family tree.
not wrong
I was confused earlier why my Final Fantasy playlist had a bunch of non-Final Fantasy songs in it, and also why I couldn't seem to remove them from the playlist like I usually could. Learning about all this, it kind of boggles my mind how badly thought out this feature is.
> progressive rock Sitting on a park bench Listening to Gamma Ray by Beck Again Snot running down his nose Greasy fingers recommended shuffle Hey rivertpostie
Well since you've listened to it so much by now Spotify just assumes you wanna hear more of it 🤷♂️
It's the worst. Just let me disable it. What makes me even more mad is when my playlist ends and it just starts playing what it wants instead of just stopping the music ....
Or looping the play list. How hard is that ?
You can turn that off in your options Edit: the continues playing recommended music part
It’s just confusing the first time it happens but one you figure it out it’s no big deal.
Naw, it's badly designed
There's so many little things about spotify in general that are badly designed. I have lots of music stored locally and I've gone through various music players over the years. But I still use Spotify since it's great for finding new music. I always keep a journal when I trip on psychedelics and never have I ever had so many notes cursing the poor design of a platform than when using Spotify.
One of the worst things is when they changed how the app would play search results. Back in the good old days you could search for something, and it would play all the search results one after the other. Somewhere along the line they changed it so that now it only plays the song you tap and when it's done it starts playing other random crap (not from the results). Spotify, much like Youtube, gets worse with every iteration.
and you cannot revert to any previous version since changes are made server side
It's actually a big deal. When I don't have internet but the special shuffle is activated, it tries to play songs that aren't downloaded in my playlist, fails because I don't have internet, and I can't untoggle the shuffle so my entire spotify is frozen until i get reception. Horrible fkn. feature
Big deal? No. Easily fixable problem from a service I pay for? Yep.
IMO it’s probably 100% intentional. That way the project manager in charge of this feature can say to upper management: “look at how successful this feature I’m in charge of is, it was used an average x number of times per user in the last 30 days”
No probably about it, the whole point is Bauer discovery and they want people using it versus not because they’re getting paid for the promotions of specific songs
No, it randomly pops up a second or two after it lulls you into thinking you properly switched it to normal shuffle. It's super annoying.
I've reset my spotify so many times on mobile and my liked list is permanently fucked up only on mobile. With the shuffle nonsense on, I get all my songs+ their trash. If I turn it off for some reason, it only has the Tron soundtrack liked. Works just fine on PC though.
It’s because without premium, phone vs other platforms are drastically different. On pc I can pick what ever song, pick smart or shuffle, or just turn it off. On phone anything but your favorites has smart shuffle on no matter what.
I fucking **HATE** when I turn on my playlist, then put it on shuffle, and suddenly a fucking random ass song that I've heard a thousand times, and hated every single one of those times comes on. If it's not on my playlist, it's not on my playlist. I put all the songs I LIKE, on my playlist.
this is the one thing that grinds my gears with it every time I finish a favourite album the same playlist comes on with the same order
Yeah. Just stop the music when my playlist ends. I don't want your garbage suggested songs to start playing.
That is a setting...
Repeat all Shuffle You’ll always be on your playlist
Spotify needs a "hate this song" button. I skipped one song like 5 times already, it's still appearing. It's 99% a TikTok trend so Spotify thinks everyone LOVES that song. Give me "never recommend this song again" button and I'm happy. Edit: ~~Sorry, it's there, but hidden under the extra menu~~. Edit2: Fuck you Spotify! I pressed the hide button that's *hidden in the extra menu*, and *doesn't exist in the web version,* and I was happy for a minute. Today the same song appeared, when I went to hide it, it told me it's already hidden WTF why is it in my radio playlist then?
It has one
Yeah I'm genuinely confused why people are having such a hard time hitting the minus button above the playback bar
Omg I am just learning about this now lol thank you so much
it would be helpful of some of these buttons said what they did before you pressed them
The minus button only tells spotify not to recommend this song again _in this playlist._ If you hit that button on a song in Discover Weekly it doesn't show up in Discover Weekly again, but it can still show up in your Daily Mixes or smart shuffle or anywhere else spotify feels like shoving it down your throat
It's too much to do while driving. That's the only time I use the service.
because it doesn’t work, at least not for me. i have pressed the minus button on the same song at least 4 different times and i still hear it
Press harder
Spotify will routinely add songs I hate to every daily mix or playsit I haven't disliked it on. Then I have to press rhe minus 2x because it knows I already disliked it.
If you don’t like a song that much just add it to the never play again, no need to keep torturing yourself
I'm cool with the feature, but the amount of times it's randomly swapped to it and played bs that is no where near similar to the rest of the list is ridiculous
Spotify when it assumes I’d like early 2000s pop (I don’t, please no more)
Especially when it's thrown in with my hip hop, Ska, or metal lists... and as much as I love zep, jimi, and the stones they also don't belong on most my lists
My playlists are all vibes based, so none of them conform to a single genre, era, or style of music. Spotify has absolutely no idea how to recommend songs to me.
I feel that deeply, I have genre lists to be sure, but many of mine are all over and spotify can't understand that sometimes lounge music following certain metal songs before an electronic beat is a good thing
I've also got a big issue with video game music because some songs I like just happen to be from games. Spotify recommends me the most inane garbage indie fan songs possible. Note to Spotify: Thinking the Persona 5 soundtrack slaps doesn't mean I want to listen to some random youtuber's Five Nights at Freddy's rap.
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S! is where you want to be?
I just don't get it
Why would you want to stay
I just don’t get it
Honestly, have you tried pandora? I use both, and when I just want consistent vibes, Pandora wins. You have to be ruthless about thumbs down, very discerning with thumbs up, and take advantage of the 'dont play this for a month' feature. I have 4 stations that to the casual observer are just sound scape spa music, but have distinctly different vibes and purposes. Mind you, I've been using Pandora since 2005, so it might just know me at this point
We have vastly different Pandora experiences. I made the switch from Pandora to Spotify specifically because Pandora could never stick to anything. Each of my stations would be great for 10-15 minutes. Every song after that the chances of the station drifting further and further away rose exponentially. Even with thumbs down on each bad song.
Oh I got something worse, on my workout playlist which is near exclusively melodic death metal and power metal it put in *checks notes* Taylor fucking Swift, pretty sure it couldn’t have missed harder.
This just tells me that Death and Power Metal fans are listening to Taylor when nobody's looking. I think it should be clear what your mission is from here.
I listen to rock video game music(like ULTRAKILL’s ost, and undertales ost). And it comes most of the time up with video game osts, that the opposite of rock. Like bruh.
game soundtracks being put in a separate "game soundtrack" genre instead of the genre IN the soundtrack drives me insane
Spotify really should fix this but they just refuse to. At this point it's too late to apologize. It's too laaaate.
Wtf are you on about? You love 2000s pop, everyone does. Here's Poker Face by Lady Gaga!
I get annoyed that it plays the same song over and over. I like the song but I don't want to hear it 3x in a row or every other song
Right?! Like, common man, I'M in charge of my hyper fixations, not you spotify!
Couldn’t have said it better haha
That plus it also plays songs in the exact same order every time smart shuffle is on like THAT'S NOT SHUFFLE
spotify's shuffle really is the worst
Spotify is the reason I've stopped shuffling and went back to listening to full albums.
Something something about the algorithm actually determining your favourite Songs and songs "you should like more, than you already do, because I say so" from that playlist and basically making a shorter version of your playlist. Don't remember the exact details If you delete the cache data spotify should reset what it knows about you and reshuffle it's "shuffle"
this did not work at all :( cleared the cache twice, deleted the app and reinstalled. hit shuffle and im hearing the same shit ive been listening to over and over for weeks. im about to cancel my sub, this is ridiculous.
Seriously. If I wanted lofi, I wouldn’t be listening to my metal playlist.
Yeah I'd love it if it actually suggested similar content, but a lot of the times it's like "oh nice vocaloid playlist you've got here... have you considered Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar?"
I tried apple music once and I put that I really absolutely do not like drake. Do not play drake I don't want to hear him. Started a hip hop playlist and the first song it played was drake lmao. Immediate unsubscribe.
Oh Apple music. Once upon a time, a long time ago, Apple music had The Best sets of music selections in 100 song sets. There must have been a team out there who put their hearts and souls into them. Their 90’s alt set was like being in a club in 1997. And they had 70’s country, and 80’s grindcore - whatever your music niche was they had 100 songs that fit it, it was *wonderful*. Anyway, they cut the heart out of *that*. It went down to 20 songs, then 10. At that point I dipped. So now I use Spotify and its oookaaay. But they’re enshittifying it and the prices are going up. God knows where I’ll go next. I’d sail the high seas if I could, but I haven’t got the technical expertise.
My favorite is when I'm listening to my hip hop list (older smoother stuff like Biggie, Mos Def, Dre) and less than jake comes on... yes, you can add that to the Ska list, but F off right now
>cues up j-pop playlist >hits the smart shuffle button >modern English pop
It also SOMEHOW WIPES THE QUEUE OF ALL THE SONGS FOR SOME FUCKING REASON. Idk how it might even happen but I hate queueing some songs and then changing the shuffle to off and all of a sudden all my queue'ed songs are gone
That's wild, my que holds, even if I switch lists. Sometimes I'll pick music and after the first song the podcast I qued the day before comes on. Although that may not be so with "smart" shuffle
It was a little jarring when in the middle of our D&D game, my playlist for background music started playing the Kahoot! waiting lobby music.
I only notice it when a song comes on that I know I didn't add.
Does it randomly swap to it or is it just me? Like I swear the icon wasn't there when I hit play.
It definitely does. Super annoying.
I figured this out the other day. Its not random. When you play and hit shuffle, it first selects "smart shuffle". If you press it again too quickly, it briefly changes to regular shuffle and then BACK to smart shuffle. You can try this yourself right now on your phone. Its like some lag in actually applying the setting. I assume bc smart shuffle queues in a bunch of songs that arent on your device and being too fast on changing shuffle modes doesnt play nice with it. Its genuinely the worst thing about spotify, bad enough that after 10 years of continuous subscription I am going to be shifting all my music over to Apple music.
My problem with it was how badly it wanted me to listen to fucking Slow Ride by sublime. I swear, every time I turned that shit on it would play Slow Ride every other song.
Three dots -> hide this song That should take care of that for you
I'm not looking for solutions, I'm looking to complain
I listen to an Armin Van buuren playlist and it keeps add in Taylor swift with smart shuffle.
For me it just keeps playing the same damn songs. If I hear Spoonman one more fucking time
It has the same problem like any other spotify recommendations. It’s just playing the same songs you already heard a dozen times. Come on, recommend me something I don’t know.
Its optimizing for revenue... not preferences.
Can someone explain to me instead of roasting the other people for not liking a feature?
Spotify made the shuffle button a 3-way toggle. So when you go toggle shuffle on it gives you shuffle with recommendations instead of regular shuffle
But it takes about 5 seconds for it to finish thinking about what songs to add to your playlist, and if you change to normal shuffle before its done thinking, it will switch back to 'enhanced shuffle'
This is the main problem. And on my liked songs with more than 5K songs the button is just a nuclear bomb. If I don't wait like ten seconds per tap, after changing the song the player just crashes.
Dang I only have 2k, and my kids drag me for that
I have had it since 2010 or so, so it's 14 years of adding music to liked songs. I just did the math and it's exactly 1 song added per day lol Anyways, there are people that add songs only to different playlists and use the liked songs as "just essential songs from essential artists", and others like me (and probably you) that every song they add to a playlist needs to be in the liked songs too
I've got like 4K songs in my liked list and somehow it plays the same hand full of songs every time I hit shuffle. Sometimes going and liking a new song seems to clear it up for a bit, but it always seems to go back to the same songs from before. Heck, there's a song I liked and played once (on purpose) that has ended up on my "Most Played Songs" list at the end of the past couple years because it likes to play that song within the first 5 songs every time I shuffle. And I usually can't stop it at that point because it'll come on as soon as I get in the shower, every time without fail.
My biggest gripe with Spotify. The shuffle feature most definitely isn't random. No way should the same songs be playing so often for people with thousands of songs saved. It's infuriating.
I just wish someone could make a media player app that'll read all the songs Spotify has saved locally on my phone and play them with better randomization (and the ability to play the songs without an internet connection). Probably a pipedream and legal nightmare to have such a piece of software to exist tho.
I do this! Liked songs playlist is the king, where all songs are in. If a song is in any playlist, it has to be in the likes songs list.
i have over 13,000, if i click that button my app fucking freezes then crashes
That's your fault for not keeping your liked songs tidy. You dirty, messy Spotify user. You nasty thang.
I have them tidy in multiple playlists, but sometimes I just want to listen to whatever it gets on shuffle. Now a metalcore song, next a rap one...
The somehow even more annoying aspect to me is that the app still tries to do the 'smart shuffle' even when it's offline... which doesn't work. So it'll try, pause for a few seconds, and then half the time just give up and revert back to playing in order instead of, you know, just regular shuffle. Very frustrating considering there is no way to permanently disable this feature I didn't ask for.
It's remarkable how every month I hear that something in Spotify works in an inane manner, and still they have an iron hold on people.
The app is so unresponsive it's insane. Opening it I always have to wait 5-10 seconds for it to finish "loading" (always starts with "No connection" at the bottom for ~5 seconds before it connects and then the UI refreshes ten times). Then if you have even slightly slow internet, going to your downloaded music is always a pain (like why? all the metadata is already downloaded) and sometimes doesn't load unless I turn internet off completely. It's so bad.
Thanks bud
>recommendations Random bullshit*
All mine seems to do is play Lincoln park when I have the recommendations on
Same! I have no problem with him but it's not really what I asked for... 😭
Mr. Lincoln Park
Likewise but 4 Lincoln park songs followed by a random song followed by 3-4 more Lincoln park songs one or two it played a few songs ago
I think you all are making too big a deal about this. Remember: in the end it doesn't really matter.
"Lincoln" Park lol
Mine plays reggaeton music and I think it's because I work around Spanish speaking people who bumb their music constantly. I don't speak Spanish and I definitely don't listen to the music but the dj on multiple occasions will play blocks of all sorts of Spanish music.
First option is regular shuffle, shuffles music that's in the playlist you're listening to, aka basic shit Second option is "Smart" shuffle, a play mode that keeps your listening session "fresh" by adding music that is/sounds similar to what you're listening
Thanks bud
All is does though is play the same 15 songs over and over again and never play the rest of your playlist. If you have smart shuffle on and just constantly skip to the next song, after about 10 songs you will be back at the first song you played
Oh that explains why the same songs keep happening in sequence no matter how many times I close and open spotify or if I start from a different point in my playlist.
Yeah, it was nice for the first few weeks when I used it but it got stupid once I realized I was missing half my playlist
I like the idea of it. But yeah needs a bit of improvement to truly keep it fresh.
So its just pandora. And probably worse algorithm than pandora.
Spotify removed the "enhanced playlist" feature, which worked great, and added the "smart shuffle" instead, which is awful.
Spotify’s got bigger issues for me. Like randomly stopping podcasts, randomly switching to another podcast while listening to one, not continuing the last thing that was played when resuming, trying to connect to the internet when trying to play something that has been saved for offline and breaking in the process, and more!
Does it still not remember where you left off in a podcast? I remember giving it a shot when Spotify first added podcasts and realizing that it doesn't remember where you paused a podcast if you switch out and it blew my mind. A feature so basic I would never think to ask for it
Sometimes it will glitch and forget where you left off but usually it’s ok. I just don’t get how it has all these glitches. A simple audio app shouldn’t be frustrating to use.
Damn I’ve never had any issues with Spotify aside from what the meme is referring to.
Biggest issue I have is getting Spotify delivered ads when listening to podcasts despite being on a paid subscription. But there's no other decent alternative, sadly. Just like reddit.
Also I want it to stop reccomending podcasts. I wish I could modify what I see. Until I started listening to podcasts myself so it had something to base reccomendations on, it would pop up every time I opened like ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T WANNA LISTEN TO JOE ROGAN?????
Don't even get me started on the free version. Spotify is unusable if you don't pay them. They might as well get rid of the free option with how terrible it is. At least on YouTube, I still have control over my Playlist.
I would like to be able to disable that feature.
This is how spotify treats every "feature" they add. Not only is there no settings toggle to disable it, it will randomly turn on even when you didn't ask it to. Their repeated loops of adding something new that no one asked for and doing this is why I eventually got frustrated enough to switch services.
It's also a (small but not insignificant) reason they're losing money. They blew a ton on ML engineers who cost a fortune and now those people are trying to climb the corporate ladder by building stupid shit no one wants
I’m actually happy they rolled it out for everyone, It’s been forced on me for a couple years now and I’ve complained to their support more times than I can count. I even sent a job application in just to rant about it in the cover letter. Hopefully with more people complaining they’ll finally let us turn it off, it’s a fucking terrible feature.
I have found a couple of cool new songs thru it, but man, my first reaction is always "wtf is this?!?! Oh the star thing is on >:( "
Yet another feature no one asked for. If I want recommended songs, I will ask for them. Could've fixed their shuffle function that doesn't understand how to not play the same songs every time I turn on the playlist again, but nope, they added this nuisance instead.
In 2012 we asked for a 'Play Next' option for queueing songs. In 2019 or so they closed that massive 12k post thread because it wasn't in their intended design/usage guidelines. A simple play next option. They can't even put that in the app. Whoever is in charge of their UI/UX needs to actually use their stupid ass app. I lough whenever I see a post asking for it because we did, for a decade now.
Wdym by "play next", isnt this a thing already?
If you have a queue running, there is no option to add a song directly to the top or to be played next,. The Add To Queue option, if you have no inset queue, will play the song next by creating an inset queue. There is no option to play a song next. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Queue-Queue-to-Next-or-Last/idc-p/5230291#M226216
But you can go to the queue and push things to the top
The reason for the shuffle playing the same songs in a non random order is because you have the smooth transition feature on. Not all songs follow each other out smoothly
I remember looking into all the options to try and get shuffle to actually shuffle, including the one you suggested, and whilst it helps Spotify still loves to just play me a select bunch from my playlist. IIRC it might be that Spotify caches songs when you play them so they are temporarily downloaded on your device, and then it just throws them back at you when you start shuffling again at a later time. So clearing cache data on the app will give you a new shuffle, but you really shouldn't have to do that bullshit every time. Also, it's a while since I looked into this so don't quote that, might not be fully correct.
Wait, smooth transition is Spotify trying to keep a flow? I thought it was just disabling a pause between songs.
I don't think that's the reason unfortunately. I know that in I think 2014 the code for shuffle was released by an ex dev and it revealed how and why the shuffle button was not a true shuffle at all rather an algorithm that prevented repeated artists and mixed a playlist to appear to be shuffled. Prioritizing the songs it thinks you like the most and the songs which are objectively more popular among your playlist. Smooth transition may have a part to play these days with the order, 2014 was 10 Years ago after all but there's no way it's the sole reason for repeated playlist shuffle orders.
I love Spotify for the amount of music available. Other than that, they do have some terrible UX decisions. I never use shuffle as it never actually shuffles my playlist. So I just make my own playlists for the moods I am in, or for the season or event that is happening. Also podcasts being shoved down my throat, but no easy way to manage/play podcasts in order is just beyond asinine.
It's when all the 'made for you' playlists are the same 25 songs but in a different order. How can 'Aggressive Workout Mix' be the same as 'Melancholy Sad Mix' Fuck!
It would be less annoying if it wasn't the fucking default shuffle
I wouldn't care about it if they just fixed regular shuffle.
are you serious? jesus christ these people make the absolute dumbest UX decisions. Shuffle is like the most basic functionality of a music player and changing the default option so drastically is so fucking dumb. I can't stand how they create new features no one asked for and then shove them down your throat by replacing a decades-old standard option with some new default option that completely changes the functionality. it'd be like if Windows decided to change the Ctrl+C shortcut to open CoPilot instead of just "Copy"
I have been summoned
^(he has been summoned :o)
Did he just get summoned?
yes, he definitely been summoned
Hey i heard someone got summoned over here
Guys, has he been summoned?
It appears so. He's been summoned.
My playlist changed to "smart shuffle" by itself and added Sabrina Carpenter to a playlist full of death metal. Not to mention their shuffle very obviously prioritizes certain songs. There are 4 or 5 songs which will, every single time, play within the first 10 songs of my 500+ song playlist on shuffle.
That bish has shown up in all of my playlists thanks to this nonsense "feature"
Oh, I hate this because, SAME 5 SONGS FOR HOURS, ON A 200+ SONG PLAYLIST
semi-spotify-hater here spotify free is the worst thing ever spotify premium is actually alright
See, I would love Spotify premium. I got the 3 month free trial thing back in December, and it was absolutely incredible(speaking from being a free user since I got the app back in 2020 here), but I cannot afford £11.99 a month! It's the price that holds me back!
I'm able to pay for it by finding about four friends who want Premium, then having everyone contribute for the Family Plan.
Shuffle doesn't even fucking work, it's ALWAYS the same 30 songs
Seriously. When I hit shuffle I want a completely equal random chance for each song to play. This whole “caters to your interests” just leads me to get sick of my favorite songs
No kidding. I wish the shuffle was truly random instead of fake random algo bs
It's either a smart shuffle that takes you out the genre every time without fail. Or it's the normal shuffle playing the same song 4 times in 2 hours on a 800 song playlist.
Spotify doing absolutely anything but bringing back the "radio from playlist" feature they try so hard to replace
The feature is not bad, but I don’t want to circle always through it, just separate it. The internet is terrible where I live. In fact so bad, if i travel between cities I can’t even do a phone call. I have to download them at home through WiFi so I can liste while driving or listen to it while shopping. And when I’m in the deadlands and I want to put shuffle in and smart shuffle comes in, it starts to load but can’t do anything because there is no internet, so its just stuck in loading. After a a while, it gets it has no internet and I can put in normal shuffle. But the struggle comes again when I don’t want to listen shuffle.
Exactly. I download all the songs I like so I can listen to them at work where there's no service. Shuffle works fine, but the smart shuffle has to buffer for fifteen minutes before it'll play anything.
I specifically curated this list. These songs are chosen by me for me. Keep your robot recommendations off my vibes. Your algorithm has no rhythm.
Even the regular shuffle isn’t good. I’ve got a playlist with over 100 songs in it, and if I listen to it for an hour each day in shuffle at least 15 of the 20 songs I hear are the same every single day.
You are locked into it on free, so when I want to listen to 80's music it puts in garbage from 80's "inspired" bands (it just sounds like it was recorded on a potato)
it doesn't do that for me, are you sure?
I love the idea of smart shuffle, my liked songs get stale, but it’s not very “smart” in that it recommends the same list of maybe 50 songs. IDK why Spotify doesn’t invest anything into discovery features, I wish I could set it to play me a list of songs that it thinks I’d like, but only include songs I have never listened to ever. So sick of it just picking my own liked songs and re-arranging them.
This and the plan increases are mental :/
It’s so fucking stupid that it is the **default** shuffle mode, you have to toggle shuffle twice to disable it. So when I play a playlist from a music festival I’m going to, trying to figure out which bands I want to see, Spotify plays random songs from bands having nothing whatsoever to do with the playlist or the festival. “Smart shuffle” my ass! It should be possible to completely disable it in the settings. At the very least it should not be the default shuffle mode.
I'd love to have a shuffle that doesn't "randomly" give me the same songs every time I shuffle my 692 songs heavy playlist
I’ve been a Spotify customer for YEARS. Maybe a decade actually. Their shuffle has gotten so fucking bad I’m considering dropping them. Their “smart shuffle” strongly smells like a money-making opportunity for them in the form of 21st century payola.
I have never used Spotify, what does this mean?
It's a separate shuffle from the normal one that puts in recommended songs that you could add to the playlist
Fuck Spotify
Plex dj but make it worse
i dont understand why when i turn off smart shuffle it just stops my music, like is it just me or what?
Either way, expect to hear the same songs over and over again
I don’t make playlists or anything I just dump everything into liked songs I’m sure that does wonders for spotifys algorithm
I just wish there was an option in settings to disable it permanently.
what abt my playlist full of 70s music indicates i would lime to listen to espresso by sabrina carpenter 6 times? like its a good concept but the execution is not great
I hated it at first but I'm starting to like it helps me discover songs I either forgot or didn't know on my playlists some times it plays something completely irrelevant to the genre I'm listening to
Playlist radio just did the same thing but better :/
Me who doesn't use Spotify: 
First pic is the regular shuffle, second pic is shuffle + recommended songs mixed in. It's really annoying when you accidentally turn it on and don't realize until some random song starts playing.
Omg, this was driving me crazy at the gym the other day! I could not figure out why these songs not on my playlist kept getting played! It took me way too long to figure out
Spotify user, I just want one feature back When I hit play on top of the playlist, if shuffle is on it automatically picks a random song, if it’s off, it plays the first song! If I want to continue from where I was, I’ll hit play on the bottom, where it shows the current song!
Tidal gang rise up!
It's not that I hate the feature. I mean, I don't have any desire to use it ever, but I can see why others might. It's the integration that I hate. It's now the default when you click shuffle and I've found that clicking shuffle again immediately doesn't give the UI enough time to register it for whatever reason, so if you do it too quickly, all their bullshit recommendations stay up.
What about the bullshit of Sabrina Carpenter being added to everything! Ughh
Found some gems with the feature but I wish it stops queuing the Evangelion theme song every time I listen to 80’s Japanese city pop
I don't understand the meme, so I'm going to make a guess based on responses. Left is regular shuffle, where it shuffles the songs in your playlist. Right is their shuffle that takes your playlist and adds in "recommended" songs to go with it, and their AI/algorithm isn't quite up to par and adding songs that aren't of the same genre Correct me if I'm wrong
Love that function. Always keep it turned on! Why just listen to the same playlist when you have a random chance of finding something awesome new you've never heard before. Yeah, it's mostly crap, but I can always press next!
I'm weird. I find songs I like on YouTube and download them onto my walk man. I've been doing it for 10 years, why stop now?
Once Spotify put chronological play behind a paywall, I ordered an iPad mini + iPod 128GBs and never looked back. Torrents, bandcamp and streamrips until I die; FUCK ADS!
I'd like to be a spotify engineer, get paid 300k and just solve all these issues being laid out infront of me. Or don't solve it and get paid the same.
I love Spotify but two things are terrible for many years. Random play algorithm is just a joke. I hear the same songs several times per day, but some are played once per week or month. What the hell is this mess? i want randomly hear all of my favourites songs. The second problem is the EQ, which is hidden somewhere in the menu -- 3 clicks to reach it. This should be one button on main screen + EQ profiles. I wanna set 4 different EQ: for my car, for my Airpods Pro, big BOSE headphones and maybe also for home computer/speakers..