Newsletter
Fall 2026 by Rowan James Goiffon

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This is my Newsletter page with the proper formatting. Every first letter is boldened, enlarged, and each paragraph is justified across the page. As I work on these assignments, I typically listen to music, but I noticed that everytime I hit shuffle on Spotify, the queue sometimes has the same first 10 or 15 songs to start the shuffle. You'd think for a feature that it's whole job is to shuffle songs in a random, that it'd be better at doing it. So I did some research:

Turns out, Spotify used to have an algorithm that did exactly what it was supposed to do; shuffle songs in a way that gave every song in a given playlist the exact same chance to be played in any given order. One problem with this is that users found the organic shuffling techniques too chaotic, and songs sometimes repeated multiple times in a row. To counter this, Spotify introduced a new shuffle method where each song is passed through a seperate algorithm that weighed the odds depending on popularity, genre compared to the next upcoming songs in the shuffle list. Only problem with this method, is that now shuffling songs never feels purely "random", and spotify tends to push more popular songs than more niche ones.

All-in-all, neither way wins in the eyes of people. One is 'too chaotic', the other is 'too scripted'. Spotify premium users now have the option to toggle between the two options in their settings, but it's fun to know that everytime you hit shuffle, it's really a computer trying it's best to mimic randomness (and failing horribly at it).

Spotify Shuffling Techniques

• Purely Random - Each song has the same change to play
• Simulated Randomness - Queue passed through multiple algorithms to try and artificially create a shuffle that seems random, while trying to keep natural flow between songs
• Shuffle Method Toggle - Spotify Premium subscribers can choose which shuffling technique they prefer to use