{"id":20763,"date":"2022-12-03T16:14:09","date_gmt":"2022-12-03T16:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/03\/why-spotify-shuffle-is-not-truly-random\/"},"modified":"2022-12-03T16:14:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T16:14:09","slug":"why-spotify-shuffle-is-not-truly-random","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/03\/why-spotify-shuffle-is-not-truly-random\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Spotify Shuffle is Not Truly Random"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\"Spotify
Joe Fedewa \/ How-To Geek<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you\u2019ve ever used the shuffle button<\/a> on Spotify<\/a>, you\u2019ve probably noticed it often doesn\u2019t feel random at all. Turns out this is by design, and there\u2019s actually a lot that goes into how shuffle works on Spotify.<\/p>\n

You are very much not alone if this is a complaint you\u2019ve had. The Spotify Support forums<\/a> and Reddit<\/a> are littered with people airing their grievances about the shuffle feature. It\u2019s clearly not working how people expect it to work. Let\u2019s take a look at why that is.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Why Is It Called Spotify?<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Random Doesn\u2019t Feel Random<\/h2>\n

The core of this situation is our perception<\/em> of what\u2019s random versus how random works in the real world. The common complaint is Spotify\u2019s shuffle mode doesn\u2019t feel random, but true random is not what we actually want.<\/p>\n

Flipping a quarter is a good example of this. If the coin is flipped 10 times, we expect to see a relatively even distribution of heads and tails. However, true random can just as easily result in 10 straight heads. Each time the coin is flipped, there\u2019s a 50\/50 chance it will be heads or tails. That chance doesn\u2019t change depending on the previous coin flip.<\/p>\n

\"Two
Two equally random orders. Spotify<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The same thing applies to songs in a playlist<\/a>. True random could end up playing the same artist a bunch of times in a row\u2014there\u2019s an equal chance for each song to play every time. Up until 2014, this was how the shuffle feature worked, but people complained that it wasn\u2019t random enough. So, Spotify changed it up.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> How to Search for Songs in a Spotify Playlist<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

How Spotify Shuffle Works<\/h2>\n

When you press the \u201cNext\u201d button, Spotify does not randomly select the next song right then and there. The next song was already decided at the moment you turned on shuffle mode.<\/p>\n

The name \u201cshuffle\u201d is actually a very accurate description of how it works. Think of it like shuffling a deck of playing cards. When you tap the shuffle button on a playlist, all the songs are shuffled into a new order. This happens every single time you click the shuffle button.<\/p>\n

You can see this if you check the queue. I made a playlist<\/a> of 10 songs\u2014half of which are from the same artist\u2014and put it on shuffle five times. Spotify generated a new order of songs each time. Even in this small sample size, you can clearly see some of the issues people complain about.<\/p>\n

\"Playlists<\/p>\n

The same song was at the top of the list the first two times I shuffled\u2014that\u2019s more \u201crandom doesn\u2019t feel random.\u201d More importantly, the artist that appears in the playlist five times is never evenly distributed. In fact, in two of the shuffles, four out of the five songs were grouped together.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how Spotify shuffle works on a basic level, but again, this is not random. Spotify stopped using true random in 2014. Now there\u2019s an algorithm that decides the shuffle.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Streaming Music? You Should Be Making Your Own Playlists<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Enter the Algorithm<\/h2>\n

Thankfully, an engineer at Spotify outlined exactly how the algorithm works on Spotify\u2019s Engineering blog in 2014<\/a>. The algorithm has almost certainly been tweaked since then, but it\u2019s surprisingly simple.<\/p>\n

First, the algorithm spreads out songs from the same artist. However, it intentionally doesn\u2019t always do this perfectly\u2014as seen above\u2014to maintain a sense of randomness. Generally, they\u2019ll appear every 20-30% of the length of the playlist.<\/p>\n

\"Spotify
Each color is an artist. Spotify.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The algorithm also shuffles the songs by the same artist among each other. This is to prevent songs from the same albums from playing too closely together. Artists that only appear once in the playlist have a \u201crandom offset\u201d to prevent them from always being at the top of the list.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it! The algorithm itself is quite simple. Maintaining a feeling<\/em> of randomness is what really complicates things. If shuffle always perfectly arranged the artists in equal distance from each other, it would feel like a repetitive pattern. Shuffle has to strike a balance between true randomness and manufactured randomness.<\/p>\n

Random Is Hard<\/h2>\n

There are more advanced<\/a> music shuffling algorithms out there. The problem is adding complexity can make algorithms slower. Spotify<\/a>\u2018s algorithm is simple, but that allows it to shuffle almost instantly.<\/p>\n

The human brain makes the concept of \u201crandom\u201d hard to execute. The algorithm is more about creating the illusion<\/em> of randomness than true randomness because that is what our brains want. The system is never going to be perfect, but you can always hit the shuffle button<\/a> one more time.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re still curious about this topic, check out this excellent video by Gabi Belle on YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n