Spotify rolls out separate Play and Shuffle buttons

Spotify is tweaking its Play and Shuffle buttons again, this time giving users separate buttons for each playback function on both its album and playlist views.

Previously–and controversially–Spotify users only saw one prominent playback button, which used to be Shuffle. That design changed last November for Spotify’s Album view, which got a single Play button at the behest of none other than Adele.

In a blog post, Spotify said that the new, separate Play and Shuffle buttons will be rolling out worldwide “over the coming weeks” on iOS and Android for paid Premium users.

“Music–and how you listen to it–should be yours to control,” Spotify said on its blog. “So to make that choice even clearer and simpler we’re improving the listener experience and separating the Shuffle and Play Buttons for Spotify users.”

Spotify users have long been able to switch between standard Play and Shuffle modes, but over the past few years, Spotify had been giving the Shuffle button more and more prominent placement.

By February 2020, the Shuffle button had become the dominant–and hence default–playback button on Spotify’s mobile apps, meaning that Spotify users had to do some digging if they wanted to hear albums and playlists in the order their creators had intended.

Last November, the regular Play button got some much needed love after Adele requested that it be reinstated for 30, her latest album.

Spotify did Adele one better, replacing the Shuffle button with Play for all albums (although not playlists) on the streaming service.

Adele praised that change in a tweet, saying it was the “only request” she’d ever made to the streamer.

But this latest change–separate Play and Shuffle buttons for both albums and playlists–seems like the ideal one, giving users a clear, easy choice when it comes to the playback order of their tracks.

Hopefully those new buttons will stay put.