Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

In that case, it's because random numbers generated by a computer are pseudorandom, or just generated by the exact same arithmetic sequence. For instance, here's a really bad pseudo-random number generator: Start with 4. Take the last number, divide it by 2, and if it's even add 5. If it goes over 100, subtract 100. (I didn't claim it was good.)

These pseudo-random number generators can be improved by providing a seed number, which means if you give it the same starting point it will generate the exact same sequence, but the key is giving it a random seed. Often programs provide the current time as the seed. My last MP3 player would have been much better if they did that.

Spotify does a much better job with actually randomly shuffling playlists. But the problem with Spotify is if you listen to, say, Wilco radio, it's not adventurous enough and keeps playing the same few songs over and over in random order until you get sick of all of them.

Spotify upped its game with the "daily mix" feature, but yeah, radio stations are kind of crappy right now.

I mainly dont want to hear a playlist that starts with the same tune every time and then progresses through the same order of tunes when I select Random.

So often, in Google Play Music selecting random will play any of of 10 pre-set playlist cues.... The tunes will be a mix of one big polaylist that just starts at various points on the master playlist. This is why I often run across the same tunes, and why they follow each other in the exact same order.

e.g.

Normal Play Cue: A-B-C-D-E-F-G

Random is selected -

Random play attenpt 1. B-A-C-D-F-G-E (Several tunes present on the micro SD card never play)

Random play attenpt 2. F-G-E-B-A-C-D (Several tunes present on the micro SD card never play)

Random play attenpt 3. B-F-G-E-A-G-E (Several tunes present on the micro SD card never play)

I prefer the "Shuffle" feature I guess if you want to look at the semantic side of this discussion, where not tune is played twice or in the same order whenever the random button is pressed, and every time I press random, the player should recall the last tune, and pick a new playable tune each time the skip button is pressed or after the prior tune comes to an end.