Spotify has disabled auto-shuffle on albums, and we have Adele to thank for it. Before Friday, shuffle was the streaming platform’s default setting when a user listened to an album. But after the release of the pop star’s powerful new album, 30, that is no longer the case. You can still listen to an album on shuffle if you wish, but you’ll have to do it manually.
“This was the only request I had in our ever changing industry,” Adele tweeted, revealing she was responsible for the change. “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.”
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 🍷♥️ https://t.co/XWlykhqxAy
— Adele (@Adele) November 21, 2021
It shouldn’t be too surprising that this generation’s queen of soul was able to get Spotify to change a key feature of its platform. She did, after all, recently break its single-day streaming record (along with Amazon Music’s) with the release of her latest single “Easy on Me.”
In SPIN‘s review of the new album, Bobby Olivier writes: “30 is an affecting, nuanced and bravely presented return for the star, at times painfully intimate in its display of deep, very adult wounds not easily healed.” Read the full review here.