Spotify removes shuffle feature at Adele’s request to ‘tell a story’
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By Kelli Dugan, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
Spotify users can now play entire albums in the order their artists intended, and Adele deserves all the credit.
The “Hello” and “Hold On” singer tweeted on Saturday that she requested Spotify remove a play button that automatically shuffled songs with zero regard for an album’s track list. Her fourth studio album, “30,” entered the streaming service Friday.
“This was the only request I had in our ever changing industry!” Adele wrote. “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.”
Meanwhile, an account for the streaming service raised zero fuss over the request, replying via Twitter, “Anything for you.”
The shuffle option, illustrated by two crisscrossing arrows, was removed from the album play button but is still available when a user clicks to view the album tracks, The Guardian reported.
Adele’s “Easy on Me,” her first single in six years, currently sits atop the U.K. singles chart more than a month after its Oct. 15 release, the news outlet reported, citing the U.K.-based Official Charts Co.
“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,” a representative for Spotify told Variety in a statement. “For those users still wishing to shuffle an album, they can go to the Now Playing View and select the ‘shuffle’ toggle. As always, we will continue to iterate our products and features to create the best experiences for both artists and their fans.”
According to Spotify, “30″ amassed 60.7 million streams globally in the first day it was available, making it the second-most-streamed album upon release, trailing only Taylor Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version)” that attracted 90.8 million streams when it debuted one week earlier, The Guardian reported.