Spotify removes ‘shuffle’ button as default option when playing albums

Spotify has removed a play button that automatically shuffled songs regardless of an album’s track list and it is all thanks to singer-songwriter Adele.

Adele tweeted that she had requested the change for the release of her fourth studio album, 30, which arrived on streaming services on Nov 19.

She had asked the streaming platform to remove the shuffle button from the album pages in order to preserve the artist’s intention, saying the songs are placed in a certain order to “tell a story”.

Now, when you hit the play button in Album View, songs will play in order as long as you have a Premium subscription. You can still enable shuffle mode by toggling on the shuffle icon when playing an individual track.

“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. For those users still wishing to shuffle an album, they can go to the Now Playing View and select the ‘shuffle’ toggle”, Chris Macowski, the head of music communications at Spotify said.

One song from Adele’s new album, Easy on Me, holds the Spotify record for the most global listens in a single day, beating BTS’ Butter, which made its Spotify debut on May 21 and garnered more than 11 million streams.