I’m a big Spotify fan. I think they have it figured out and have given us all the best ways to listen to music. From their eclectic playlist, genres, and podcast there’s something for everyone. In no way am I trying to sell you on Spotify, they speak for themselves. It’s just that as of recently they’ve started grinding my gears.

For starters, I’m an album guy for sure. I’d rather listen to an artist complete a concept for an album in the order they pick rather than shuffling music arbitrarily out of order. I have to assume there’s a reason as to why they have one song follow another and I love to think that it’s for some reason. I spend time sometimes dissecting songs looking for parallels. But don’t get it twisted I shuffle the playlist just as much as the next guy… I live with my headphones in my ears. Pathetically I’d say now even more so than ever, since I’ve been terrible at discovering new music, I’ve been shuffling playlists more than I do listening to anyone’s complete album anymore.

Which leads me to the one thing Spotify does that absolutely infuriates me; and that is their shuffle. I’ve found myself consistently putting on one of the same three of four playlist I like over and over and over again. I will give them credit, Spotify does a half decent job of adding new songs and getting rid of some of the olds on their playlist, but they predominantly keep the playlist the same. Which I don’t mind at all, that’s why I keep putting them on repeat.

That isn’t what annoys me, what annoys me is that I’ve found that is that their shuffle never changes. If I were to go to that playlist and click the shuffle button, it will shuffles yes. But if i left that playlist and where to go back to the same one an hour later or a couple days later, it shuffles it’s songs in the same order it was shuffling last time. Like I said I’ve only been playing the same playlist over and over again so much just recently. I’ve found, shuffle or not, the playlist only plays in two orders; in order as it appears on screen, or it has this predetermined shuffle playlist that plays the same order, every time you click shuffle.

So in a moment of skepticism I decided I was going do everything I could to debunk their algorithm. I started spending my time creating my own playlists to see if it could throw Spotify off. I don’t mean to brag but they’re all kind of dope. I’ve spent time creating the perfect playlist for all the different moods consisting of some of my favorite songs, so I’m confident you’ll find something you’ll like.

Regardless, Spotify found a way to create this algorithm for my playlist and found the order it would shuffle my playlist. Every time I put on one of my playlist and click a random song hoping to change Spotify’s queue, they found themselves back to the top of the shuffle playlist like clock work. I’ve come to the conclusion that when you shuffle music on Spotify you’re not actually shuffling anything at all. They already have the shuffle decided. I need to find some new music again… pronto. And they’re not helping me by playing the same songs over and over again when I can only listen to twenty minutes of a four hour playlist.

Afterward: In actuality I realized that Spotify has two different shuffle playlists for each playlist they have. So if you go long enough without listening to them you would never notice it repeating. It’s only because I’ve spent too much of my time listening to the same music over and over again I just so happen to notice. I must ask, does apple music do the same thing?