Adele gets Spotify to remove the shuffle button from album pages
article
Sort by:
Best
Open comment sort options
Best
Top
New
Controversial
Old
Q&A
![r/DnD - [OC] Surviving on D&D Food rules for 3 days](http://web.archive.org./web/20240914101334im_/https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/rpS1N0U8G4659BNwAdOGLAsVb2OieIUQqihWoeMUfUE.jpg)
![r/hockey - [Cam Robinson] Auston Matthews’ new mega-deal for 13.5M makes him the highest-paid NHLer It would also make him the... 113th highest-paid player in the NBA, 103rd highest-paid player in the MLB, 88th highest-paid player in the NFL. So basically he’s a peasant in the pro sports world.](http://web.archive.org./web/20240914101334im_/https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/dChE5pwC_oqqATjmd-wlJXG9PIEnRF6MvP7VPz8hcAc.jpg)
Great. Can she get them to bring back the artist tab also?
Comment deleted by user
For real, what happened to their GUI ??? I can't find shit anymore
They don't want you to find shit. At some point, developers lose sight of why people came to their platform (to listen to music) and just start testing A-vs-B to see what keeps people on the site longer.
It works until it doesn't. (See Netflix. Yeah, you kept me on the site looking for a show to watch for 10 minutes, but then I quit and did something else instead of watching anything.)
But did you keep the subscription?
It's the inevitable result of having metrics: Once you define them, you optimize for them.
If your metric is "time spent on the site", well then those in charge will make sure that people spend as much time as possible on the site. No matter whether the people will enjoy their time spent on the site, or find what they are looking for.
Those aren't metrics that can be easily measured, and thus are completely ignored.
Comment deleted by user
It's not developers, it's their analytics teams that do this and convince management to make decisions on what will become permanent.. Unfortunately, there's no way to opt out of these feature tests or A/B testing even if you ask them not to use your data for research purposes.
It's not developers. We are sick of being blamed. It's the dumbass product managers.
don't blame developers for product owners fuck ups
Engagement!
Enragement!
I use the tags at the top of the list and select Artist. It acts as a filter and they show up alphabetically on mine.
It only shows artists that you follow. If you’re like me and download specific albums, but don’t follow anyone, then it becomes a huge pain to use.
So I'm not the only person who realized they majorly fucked up the music browsing in Spotify for some reason?
The app fucking sucks now, and I don't understand who found the need to change it.
It especially sucks in bluetooth car mode or whatever they call it
If it ain't broke, fix it til it is
Or improve their shuffle algorithm? Im tired of hearing the same 50 songs on my 10hr playlist...
My favorite is the discover Playlist. Somehow it thinks even though I've listened to a certain artist a thousand times I just didn't know this other super popular song from them existed? There couldn't be any other reason I favorite the rest of this album but not that song right?
So it's just a big album of songs I don't like from artists I like.
Even when I use the 'Hide song' feature on some songs many of them STILL show up in my Discover Weekly. They won't play them, but they're still there on the list. Like wtf, why do you populate this list with songs I fucking told you to hide? It wasn't always like that either. I used to love Discover Weekly until they changed it.
my friend once, put on a German rap music. Why ? because he liked the music behind the rap.
3 years later, i have to still put "hide song" "do not play this artist" to every German rapper they put in playlist or radio.
SPOTIFY I DON'T WANT GERMAN RAP ! I do not speak German, nor enjoy their rap.
Discover Weekly? I've found that playlist is actually really good at feeding me things i haven't heard of, and I have over 3,000 songs in my Liked list already over the course of 10 years.
...my god, I don't use the 'liked' section for anything so I don't go in it but this made me check, and I'm up at 9294...
Ya Discover is one of the main things I like with Spotify. I find at least 1 new band a week, which for someone who listens to as much stuff as I do is pretty useful to me.
Shuffle on the other hand is generally complete shit at shuffling. Especially on a huge Playlist.
Good help you if you listen to more then one genre. Feel like listening to metal today? Get ready to listen to it forever now.
My discovery is 'you listened to a video game song a bunch a decade ago, I bet you still love video game related songs even though you've been listening to hard techno for the past year'
Yeah I listened to one musical and it comically recommended 'puttin' on the ritz' every week. I'd hide it and always skip it.
It's like Spotify thinks 'oh she's skipping puttin' on the ritz, she must not like it, I won't include it anymore.'
5 minutes later.
'Is that a Hamilton song I hear? Oh you know what song I think she'd like? Puttin' on the ritz! I better tell her about it.'
Comment deleted by user
Like how Netflix suggests I might enjoy shows I've already watched.... No, I don't want to watch them again.
YouTube is the absolute worst for this.
Comment deleted by user
Yes! I'm not a developer but how hard is it to do a weighted shuffle? If song B hasn't been played as recently as song A, song B goes first...
If that is really hard for some reason someone who is a dev please ELI5
It's not remotely hard. A 2nd year computer science student could build that shuffle algorithm. The more likely answer is that Spotify's shuffle algorithm IS weighted- weighted to play the songs that are cheapest for them to play, or weighted to play the songs that make them the most money. It's just not weighted for the consumer.
This is the main reason I've stopped using the various Spotify playlists, and started making my own. You get better flow between songs this way, too. Sometimes using the new "enhance" feature, but it can be a hot mess too.
iTunes shuffle back in the Nano days (late 2000's) was actually pretty good. I don't know how iTunes shuffle is now days though. It can be done but Spotify wont do it. I suspect it has something to do with money or royalties.
Same. I got an even longer one but it always plays the same songs.
Can't artists pay to have songs played more? I feel like my shuffle HAS to be optimized in such a way that certain artists are more likely to play than my weird, avant garde, quirky shit.
The problem is that I PREFER my weird avant garde quirky shit and even if I do have a few James Blunt or Ariana Grande tracks saved, it's not what I typically listen to
I 100% think it has something to do with money.
So my only solution for this, has been to sort the playlist alphabetically and then listen with shuffle off. You hear every song just once and it's "random" enough. Though if it's a shorter playlist you'll get used to the order of the songs.
And go back to how the whole band/artist page used to be? The new layout fucking sucks.
Totally - and obvious things should be obvious.
Discography.
single
re-released
artist radio
playlist with name of artist
ARE NOT THE SAME THINGS
And could they put the discography in release order instead of popularity?
Exactly, like as a new listener of a band I don't want to have to look specifically for the year to make sure I have them in order, and as an old listener of a band if I'm looking for a specific album it's easier in release order. Neither situation is improved by putting them in popularity order.
And let us remove songs from playlists via the currently playing songs options.. So fucking annoying when you realise you don't dig a song and want to easily get rid of it
Comment deleted by user
Can we get lyrics back while we're at it too. It's been 6 years...
Comment deleted by user
They're coming. Saw this on Twitter the other day.
The latest update fixed this.
And remove the podcast tab?
edit:
should've specified: Podcasts can stay of course, I just don't want them forced upon me. I personally hate podcasts, but still I get a shitload of ads for them and often have to scroll trough podcast recommendations.
Atleast let us hide it.
Or order it
Yes let us hide Podcast recommendations
I’m tired of seeing Joe Rogan and his army of pseudointellectuals peddling their shitty podcasts
I listened to part of one episode of a golf podcast once and now my recommendations are filled with golf podcasts.
Start listening to a few eps of Radiolab and This American Life and you’ll stop getting JRE ads. You could even put them on mute while you sleep.
i used to fall asleep to radiolab about 10 years ago. i really enjoyed the material, but my mostly listened to podcasts in bed. the editing was really relaxing and there weren't loud annoying ads in the middle of the show, just the short answering machine messages of the guests reading a quick 'was brought to you by' line and then spacey relaxing music until the show came back
I get Peterson and Rogan ads even though I've never listened to a podcast on Spotify
Uhh... please don't, I use Spotify for podcasts.
I just wanna hide them.
Not everyone does. I wish I could toggle a switch to hide all podcast
Options people. Options.
Comment deleted by user
Holy shit I just realized as a celebrity I could protest terrible UI decisions from companies, the dream
Quick. Get famous!
Dude dont you know who that is? haha check his post history and shit bricks haha
Was this a joke? I checked his post history and he's just as scrubby as all of us.
I don't get it either.
Oh damn! And I thought they were too good for us normies.
Nothing seems special about his post history?
dude thats u/RaphtotheMax5
Bro that is u/RaphtotheMax5 he's a legend you need to go back a little further.
you don't know who u/RaphtotheMax5 is? man must be living under a rock.
If you ever get famous, please tell Uber to just burn their Driver app and make something functional.
If you get an order request in the middle of another trip/delivery, it completely covers up the directions. If you want to decline it, you have to tap a super tiny X on the screen, while driving. I’m certain Uber Drivers have died taking their eyes off the road trying to focus and tap that tiny button.
Comment deleted by user
I’ve been asking them to do this for years. Apparently I’m not famous enough
Ok you can still shuffle albums if you want too but it isn’t the default choice for the giant green button which i am honestly fine with i always thought the giant default green button shouldn’t be shuffle on instead just play.
This explains so much. I always wondered how shuffle was getting enabled.
DUDE. THAT'S WHY.
I've agonized for hours over that stupid feature.
Can’t you just click the first song?
Comment deleted by user
I didn't know I had to. I thought I was clicking the start button to begin the album or playlist at the beginning, so I'd always be so confused when it bounced off to the 14th song at random.
Happy cake day. Yeah, I pretty much always click the big green button when I want to listen to an album from start to finish. That is such an odd choice but glad it is gone.
It’s one of those things about software where you just think the user experience is in mind, especially music we’re talking about here. No wonder I’ve always double checked if the songs were being played in order after I hit the play button.
Comment deleted by user
There's a little shuffle symbol next to the button...
Yeah I don’t really understand the confusion in this entire conversation lol
Comment deleted by user
Comment deleted by user
Yeah, that is a terrible design choice. But Spotify is filled with terrible design choices.
Like cluttering your home page with music and podcasts you will never listen to
Comment deleted by user
Comment deleted by user
Yup. But man, there are so many other problems with their UI and how they make constant changes. When I worked in a restaurant, we used it to play music. And they would constantly make UI changes that would move necessary control options. I never knew how to consistently find anything, because they would roll out minor changes seemingly weekly. These apps should roll out bug fixes, but save significant UI changes for maybe quarterly or even just yearly updates. That way people know that a major change is coming and they can issue a demo showing the changes and where to find navigation controls.
My discover weekly is pretty good but all the home page mixes and suggested music is dogshit pop and new school hip hop I'll never listen to.
I mostly listen to electronic genres and my main playlist is full of eclectic tracks that have like 500-10k plays. So I guess the algorithm is just bad at making recommendations outside of the discover weekly for some reason.
But they don't advertise to premium users, right?
I'm so fucking sick of being advertised at on every fucking platform and then they claim it isn't ads because it's their product. Fuck off.
"Hello, hoilst. We've got you down as 'Male' so we assume you're a white, 20-something American boy who probably works in STEM, because that's who wrote this algorithm and we don't relate so well to others who aren't exactly like us...so have you checked out the Joe Rogan Experience? We're pretty sure you'd like the Joe Rogan Experience. You should really listen to the Joe Rogan Experience."
FUCK. OFF.
I still use it, but most of Spotify is a terrible design. My favorite is when I’m trying to access a “downloaded” album on my phone and it won’t because of poor data. Close the app, turn data off completely, and boom it’s there.
I’m too lazy to switch because I Have so many playlists and stuff, but fuck Spotify. They have done almost nothing to improve UI in the last 5 years and their radio function has gotten worse and worse.
Comment deleted by user
The main button on an album page in Spotify is shuffle? Dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
Agreed. It's even worse when it's a concept album.
Or if you're listening to a comedy album.
Many a Pink Floyd session have been ruined by the Big Green Dumb-dumb button😮💨
Youtube music does the same thing. It's a big shuffle button. I always wished it was play. Instead you have to click on the first song to begin autoplay.
Edit: I just went to mine, shuffle and add to library on web. Play and shuffle on mobile app.
I have 2 equals sized buttons for regular and shuffle on my app
Same. What I've been unhappy about is that I have a Playlist with literally thousands of songs on it, and YouTube has decided it'll play like, 25 of them, and then bring in "suggestions". Fuck off with that shit! I curate the music I want to listen to. I don't want suggestions. If I do, I'll play a different Playlist.
I'd just like to point out that YouTube music is shit, and I want my Google Play Music back...
They fucking erased all my playlists and songs from mixtapes not on streaming platforms and stuff that was hard to find on the net, because they told me all of it would be transferred but none of it was after it said it was done. Stupid shit
I just don't understand how it got so shit. Google already built a perfectly good app. They owned it. Just fucking slap a new YouTube skin on it and call it a day. It can't be that hard.
Youtube music also treats shuffle not as a toggle but an action. If you press shuffle it generates a list of randomized songs. Press it again it makes a new random list.
YT music? It's two big buttons next to each other at the top of the track list. The left one says PLAY and the right one says SHUFFLE.
Is there different set up options perhaps?
I ended up looking after a couple comments, turns out mobile has play, but the web browser does not.
For a moment I was thinking I had some A/B testing build ha ha.
You actually might because I have a play button on web.
No it doesn't. Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/CvGoHbF.png
Oh looking now my mobile has a play button, my browser does not.
the few albums I listen to repeatedly all the way through are either Musicals or Metal (specifically a band called Gloryhammer) where the listening order is kind of part of the experience and the default shuffle always gets a groan from me
99% of the time when I'm listening to music, I'm listening to full albums. The shuffle button messes up the whole album's dynamic, and I've never understood why it's the default.
Most fans of artists like Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen and Pink Floyd will agree with me there. In fact, I'd go on a hunch and say that almost all albums are written with end-to-end dynamics in mind, and there's hardly any albums out there where shuffling the songs won't harm your experience.
I bet you could do AC/DC on a mix and it wouldn't hurt the experience, with it being the same song and all.(songs pretty dope though)
I can't imagine Back in Black ending with any other song than Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution, though I've always thought that the title track would have been a better opener than Hells Bells. I guess that's why it opens side two, back when albums actually had sides.
If you just go to an album and tap the first song, it'll continue through the album in the right order. I only ever use the big green button if I'm playing a random playlist. I also use Spotify as much on my desktop as I do on my phone, and it's kind of weird how different both versions are.
I guess it's good that it's not the default for albums anymore, though.
On mobile they removed the option to view track listings for albums for non premium users, so I’m forced to use shuffle every time
Right, that's the point. Albums in the correct order is a paid feature.
Joke's on them I like chaos in my life
Lolwut. That's probably the worst 'feature' to shoe horn people into paying for your service.
Idk it got me to fork over 10 dollars a month, I was sick of skipping, nope not the right song, skip, nope not the one, skip, nope not the one, skip, WANT A BREAK FROM THE ADS????? VISIT SPOTIFY PREMIUM...” But good lord I wanted to blow a hole in my head trying to use the unpaid version of spotify, its almost unusable the only part that makes it useable is that it plays songs, you have no idea what songs and you have no ability to choose any of them. Its been so long so im not sure if they changed it but I remember clicking on a song and it immediately going to a random song on that album and I didn’t ever end up listening to that song cause it kept skipping it, free spotify is hell on earth
Never even know this was an issue until right now…
Can they remove podcasts from my homepage and make desktop and mobile work like each other? So dumb we already could listen to albums without shuffling them.
They had some stupid amount of revenue growth off podcast ads last quarter and their stock popped on the announcement, so I'm sorry to tell you that podcasts aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Does this apply for free users too? It's been a while since I switched to premium so maybe I'm remembering wrong but I thought that was one of the reasons I upgraded. I thought on the free version of Spotify it was forcing me to listen to albums and playlists shuffled, and it was annoying me not getting to choose the order so I upgraded.
But the way no-one in the comments seems to be mentioning this I'm now wondering if I was just dumb and selecting a shuffle button when there was a way to play them in my own order..
Free users can only play songs in random order still.
Thank you. Having the play button start shuffle play is one of the stupidest UI decisions I've ever seen. Spotify does seem to make a few stupid UI decisions every time they update the interface
I can finally listen to pink Floyd on my way to work with a simple button press rather then hoping I have shuffle off then finding out after the song ends it was not
You've always been able to do that. Just click the first song in the album....
Yeah, it's literally like 5cm lower on the screen...
Comment deleted by user
I came here to say this.
It's kinda whatever either way, but I'm not really understanding the hate for the pretty simple 1 tap play for either way you wanted to listen to the album lol
Exactly. Lame choice on Spotify’s part. Cuz now to shuffle you have to choose a song, turn on shuffle from the play screen, and then hit next. Reshuffle if you want the song you started with to be included in the shuffle.
Now the play button is even more inconsistent across different Spotify pages and apps 🤦♂️
Why can't we have both buttons there? BOTH Play & Shuffle buttons like other music apps have it.
💡New Idea:
Albums & Playlists: Have BOTH Play & Shuffle buttons at the top
Please click the link and vote for it in the Spotify Community if you agree.
I support you noble cause but lmao spotify will go bankrupt before they start implementing community suggestions.
Comment deleted by user
Are you using Spotify? All of mine are listed chronologically when I click the see discography button
Goddamn, finally. Only axe murderers shuffle albums by default.
Do you like Huey Lewis and the News? Their early work was a little too "New Wave" for my taste. But when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost.
He's been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor. In '87, Huey released this, Fore, their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is "Hip to be Square", a song so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself.
Hey Paul!!
They Might Be Giants’ album Apollo 18 has a bunch of little mini-songs near the end, all little 5-13 second tracks. The point was, if you had the album on a CD, to put it on shuffle and the mini-tracks would pepper themselves among the others. Not that it’s the norm, just saying… Edit: cd, not xd
Ok was that ever on Spotify because if I go to that album there all of the musical shorts are condensed into a single 4 minute song (fingertips extended)
I swear I heard the shorts play sometimes when just shuffling through their playlist of songs but if I go there now there isn't a trace of them
Also lemon demon/Neil cigegaria has albums like that - Spirit phone has bonus shorter instrumental tracks at the end that are meant to play interspersed between the other songs when shuffled (iirc that's because the album actually originally followed the same call-a-number/answering machine schtick as the TMBG album, hence the album name spirit phone)
It used to be on spotify and it is not anymore. Really upsetting tbh I loved listening to that album on shuffle w the fingertips interspersed. One of my favorite playlists used one of them and now it doesn’t feel the same.
Can't say I've ever pressed the shuffle button but it's a bit weird to not let people have that option.
That's the point. Albums autoshuffled. Now you can manually shuffle if you want to, but the album will default to playing in order
I've been using Spotify for about... 7 years now? Albums don't auto shuffle. The big green button that has the shuffle symbol? Yes, that plays in shuffle. But just don't click the button that plays it in shuffle and it doesn't shuffle automatically.
I think albums auto shuffle if you're not a subscriber
I think they do that so people can't select individual songs, probably to push subs or a anti bot measure
Do you have free Spotify or premium?
Only time I really use the shuffle button is when I'm playing my liked songs list. I certainly don't want to listen to those in any type of order lol
If you're a Spotify dev, tell your boss to have someone look at this damn thread. There's a bunch of other common UX problems that are summarized very neatly in here. It's a free gold mine of user feedback--don't waste it.
What kind of psycho shuffles an album?
Someone that's listened to the album hundreds of times previous and enjoys hearing it in a different order from time to time
Sometimes I want to listen to an album as an album, other times I want to listen to an artist and will shuffle all their albums.
Exactly this. I'll do an album front to back 100 times, but sometimes I just want to listen to a few random songs from LCD Soundsystem's debut album because I want that specific sound. So shuffle it is, surprise me.
Lol I was just thinking how I do this all the time with This Is Happening and then I read your comment.
I used to burn out so fast on albums because I would get sick of hearing the next song in my head before the previous track had even finished.
Now I listen to the album straight through a couple times when I first hear it and then shuffle it from then out.
It also depends on the album. Some it literally won’t even change anything to shuffle it because it’s just a collection of individual songs. Other albums purposely feed each song into the next in a cohesive way and are better to hear in the correct order. Then there are concept albums which should definitely be played in the correct order.
Sometimes I'll shuffle an album after I've heard it a few times. Never the first time though.
Comment deleted by user
Albums weren't on shuttle. Rather, it played an artist's radio
They Might Be Giants' album Apollo 18 has the experimental song "Fingertips". It's made up of 21 short "songs" and explicitly mentions being designed around the shuffle feature on CD players. You can listen to it straight through (it has an intro and outro that coalesce it into a complete thing), it's been played live that way, but it was also an experimental idea to throw tiny snippets in between other songs at random.
It really brings back the side of TMBG where you remember that they partly got their start as underground art scene weirdos. They've never really given up doing weird, experimental stuff that's still actually listenable.
Depends on the album. Especially if I've already listened to it all the way through a few times. Shuffle can be nice.
Kanye just did on Donda Deluxe
Comment deleted by user
Do you guys not know that if you select the first song in a playlist/album, it would play the songs in order?
Yes, but UI should be intuitive. If you dont use spotify everyday or mostly for podcasts or playlists, you probably always use that big green button. I can see why artists would want their albums to be listened to properly as the default.
From a design perspective though, the giant green button with a play icon is what most ppls brains would default too.. should only make sense that play means play, not play with the condition of shuffling the album
An album is supposed to follow a logical progression, like a rock opera about a pinball wizard.
Well, not all albums do though.
But I don’t always have time to listen to the entire album. Shuffling is good for quickly making a small selection. As long as you’ve heard the album top to bottom in order before, you don’t have to do it every single time you listen to it.
Comment deleted by user
I heard that loseless audio is almost imperceptible unless you have really good audio equipment and even then is not the biggest thing. Is it really worth the investment?
Not trying to go down an audiophile hole, but most people, even on nice sound systems, can't tell the difference after a certain quality level. Spotify could literally say they're now streaming lossless without actually doing it, and most listeners would swear it was different.
obtainable plate quiet domineering soft spoon jar juggle sip airport
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
Regarding running super shoes it’s actually the opposite, as you run slower compared to professionals you actually get more benefit out of them, in some cases up to 10%.
The [difference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(data_compression)) between lossless and something like 320 kbps CBR MP3 or 92 kbps Opus is essentially imperceptible, but it's only like 500-1000 kbps for lossless FLAC.
Spotify uses 320kbps Vorbis at highest settings, IIRC.
That should be completely transparent to the human ear.
Lossless compression is for archival purposes, which is obviously not the use case with Spotify.
Pink Floyd took their music off of Groove Shark for the same reason.
Their explanation was that the albums weren't a collection of disconnected tracks but were intended to be listened to whole.
A dedicated shuffle button actually made sense. Having to select a song on an album prior to having it shuffled defeats the object of having an album shuffled; whereas if you wanted to listen to an album in the order the artist intended, just pressing the first song on the album would give you that.
All this has done is idiot-proofed a UI at the expense of everyone who isn't an idiot.
I’m very happy about this. It always pissed me off that the default was shuffle. You can still turn it on afterwards if you want (maniac!), so it hurts no one.
The default was never shuffle, they just had a big shuffle button.
I don’t think I’ve ever used that button! I just tap on the first track on the album
I switched from Google Play music to Spotify because YouTube music is crap from an ass.
But for the LIFE OF ME I couldn't fucking fathom why the default way to play an album involves shuffling it. It is unambiguously the wrong default action for an album. You can listen on shuffle but, for it to be the default way? So so so so so dumb.
Good, now I can listen to Adele albums the right way. By still not listening to them
Meanwhile I can't have a collaborative playlist with just me and my friend, instead I have to hope no random user decides to come in and delete all of the songs or add thousands of their own on a whim.
Literally last week, one spam user has added 13 tracks to my playlist all from the same artist, clearly hoping to game the system and hope people just shuffle and don't mind the new songs when they come up.
This is surely something that Spotify would want to stop, but they don't seem to care.
Go back to the old radio with the like and dislike, that was so much better than just making a playlist that’s 20 songs that aren’t even close to what you asked for
The radio feature still exists though
How about not naming playlists after songs
Shouldn't that be users choice?
Theres no problem with Adele albuns, they all sound the same over and over again