Adele convinces Spotify to remove the shuffle button from album pages: “our stories should be listened to as we intended”
Streaming giant makes it less easy on you if you want to mess with an album’s running order
Demonstrating the clout she currently has within the recording industry, it seems that Adele has convinced Spotify to remove the shuffle option from album pages on the company’s mobile app for customers who have a Premium subscription.
On learning that Spotify had made the change following the release of 30, her new album, Adele commented on Twitter: “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.”
Anything for you 🙏✨November 21, 2021
Although this does represent a change - the shuffle icon no longer appears on the play button when you open an album page - shuffling is still possible if you click the ‘now playing’ bar and engage the option from there. It’s no longer the default, though, and listeners will have to take an extra step if they want to listen to an album out of order.
30 is already proving to be a massive hit, with every single one of its tracks currently appearing in Spotify’s global top 50 - though not in album order, we should point out.
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I’m the Deputy Editor of MusicRadar, having worked on the site since its launch in 2007. I previously spent eight years working on our sister magazine, Computer Music. I’ve been playing the piano, gigging in bands and failing to finish tracks at home for more than 30 years, 24 of which I’ve also spent writing about music and the ever-changing technology used to make it.
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