The play button on a Spotify album page doesn’t allow for shuffling anymore, apparently because of a request from Adele. When you viewed an album on Spotify there was a small shuffle icon within the larger play button, which indicated that the album’s songs would play in a random order. While it may not be what all users wanted, Spotify claims it increased discoverability of an artist’s music.
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As reported by the BBC, Adele appears to have asked Spotify to change this feature, citing that albums should be listened to in a specific order. So now, when you hit the play button Spotify will start playing the first song in the album (if you have a Premium subscription) and play it in order as released on the album. You can still enable shuffle mode by toggling on the “Shuffle” icon when viewing an individual track.
The hit artist sent out a tweet to thank Spotify for making the change. “Our art tells a story, and our stories should be listened to as we intended. Thank you, Spotify, for listening,” she said.
This was the only request I had in our ever changing industry! We don’t create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason. Our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended. Thank you Spotify for listening 🍷♥️ https://t.co/XWlykhqxAy
— Adele (@Adele) November 21, 2021
“As Adele mentioned, we are excited to share that we have begun rolling out a new Premium feature that has been long requested by both users and artists to make play the default button on all albums,” Chris Macowski, the head of music communications at Spotify, said. “For those users still wishing to shuffle an album, they can go to the Now Playing View and select the shuffle toggle.”
The change was made by Spotify only a couple of days after the release of Adele’s latest album, 30. As was the case with her previous albums, it is already extremely popular. For example, the song ‘Easy on Me’ now holds the record for the most global listens in a single day, dethroning k-pop mega-group BTS.
