We finally won! Spotify gives in and launches TWO options for shuffle, so here’s what’s different

There has been a huge issue with Spotify shuffle for a long time. I first noticed it when I used to use my Sonos speaker to listen to Spotify. When I shuffled Spotify on my phone, then I often felt like the same songs or artists came up a lot. There’s never be a succession of songs by the same artist, and it felt like the shuffle algorithm was prioritising tracks I’d been spinning a lot in order to satisfy me. In actuality, I wanted a true random. On Sonos, the Spotify player on there was built into Sonos and the shuffle was a true random and it felt completely different. Now Spotify has released two versions of shuffle to try and reach that happy medium, and you’ll be able to choose which one you think is best – here’s what they mean and how it works.

Spotify just announced two types of shuffle – so here they are explained

In a big blog post both on Spotify’s newsroom and on its engineering blog, the streaming service has finally addressed the complaints people have had with shuffle on Spotify. The two new versions of shuffle on Spotify are the default fewer repeats, and then the one you can choose if you prefer the old way which is called standard.

According to Spotify, the fewer repeats option is meant to “preserve the spirit of randomness whilst also improving variety”. It will be the default shuffle you’re on when the app updates.

The blog states that fewer repeats will:

• Generate multiple random sequences. Each of these potential shuffle sequences is a mathematically random version of your playlist.

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• Score each sequence for freshness. We check how recently you’ve listened to the songs — both within that playlist and across Spotify. Each random sequence loses “freshness points” for recently played tracks appearing early in the order. The earlier in the order and the more recent they were played, the more points they lose.
• Pick the freshest version of the random sequences. The sequence with the highest freshness score wins, becoming your final Shuffle.

(via Spotify Newsroom)

On the other hand, the standard option is the one I will personally probably go for. I much prefer the randomness than an algorithm. Explaining the standard version, Spotify says “We use a well-known method called the Mersenne Twister, which is essentially a random number generator. Each song in your playlist gets a unique value based on a randomly calculated “seed” number, and the playlist is then ordered according to those random values. This creates a sequence that is mathematically fair and completely unpredictable.

This mode doesn’t factor in recent plays or listening patterns — every track has an equal chance, every time you hit Shuffle, which can lead to hearing the same songs.”

How to choose between the two

If you go to your playback settings on Spotify mobile, you can scroll down to a part where it says Shuffle. You can then pick between the two selections.

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