A Brief History of Shuffling Your Songs, from Apple to Adele從蘋果到阿黛爾：音樂隨機播放簡史

希拉·費德/文　胡文明/譯

Adele’s album， 30， dropped on November 19， 2021， and around the same time， the superstar made a demand of music streaming behemoth1 Spotify： that they stop making the shuffle option the default on album pages.

2021年11月19日，阿黛爾的新專輯《30》正式發布，與此同時，這位巨星向音樂流媒體巨頭Spotify提出了一個要求：停止將隨機播放作為專輯頁面的默認設置。

“Our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended，” she tweeted on November 20. The decision was applauded2 around the internet， and it signaled a sea change3 in the way we consume music—from the early 2000s celebration of the shuffle feature to a rejection of it as the default.

11月20日，阿黛爾在推特中表示：“我們用藝術講述著故事，人們應該按照我們的初衷來聆聽。”這一決定受到網民的廣泛好評，也標志著音樂消費方式的巨變——從21世紀初對隨機播放功能的推崇，到如今拒絕將其作為默認播放方式。

Here’s how that happened， and what that change means for Spotify’s 172 million subscribers.

那么，這一巨變是如何發生的呢？這對于Spotify的1.72億訂閱用戶又意味著什么？

What is the shuffle feature？

隨機播放功能究竟是什么？

The shuffle feature as we know it today came into the spotlight4 in the early 2000s， with the arrival of the iPod， although music shuffling has been around for a very long time. “Shuffle is a way to listen to music， where you cede5 some of the control of what comes up next to a machine or an algorithm，” says Devon Powers， associate professor at Temple University， whose research focuses on popular music. That means if you’re using a record changer or CD changer， or listening to the radio or even your own collection of mp3s out of order， you’re shuffling music.

盡管隨機播放功能早已問世，但直到21世紀初隨著iPod的誕生，它才成為我們如今所熟知的播放方式。“隨機播放是一種聽音樂的方式，你把下一首播放什么歌的控制權交給了機器或算法。”研究流行音樂的天普大學副教授德雯·鮑爾斯說道。這意味著，無論是使用唱片或CD換碟機，還是聽收音機，甚至是無序播放你自己的mp3收藏曲目，都屬于隨機播放音樂。

But it was on January 11， 2005， when Steve Jobs presented the first iPod Shuffle， a screenless device smaller than a pack of gum， capable of only playing music randomly， that the shuffle function became a national sensation. While other iPods came equipped with a shuffle function， this release branded this function as an Apple feature.

2005年1月11日，史蒂夫·喬布斯推出了第一款iPod Shuffle。這款比口香糖還小的無屏iPod只能隨機播放音樂，至此隨機播放功能才轟動全國。盡管其他iPod也配備了隨機播放功能，但iPod Shuffle的發布將隨機播放定位成蘋果的特色功能。

Even before Apple came out with an iPod specifically dedicated to shuffle， the feature was celebrated. “I have seen the future， and it is called shuffle，” music critic Alex Ross wrote in the New Yorker in 2004. In The Guardian， it was called “a radically different way of encountering music.” Noted academic Michael Bull said shuffle turned his devices into “a treasure trove6 full of hidden delights.”

這一功能早在蘋果推出專門用于隨機播放的iPod之前就備受推崇。“我已經看到了未來，那就是隨機播放。”音樂評論家亞歷克斯·羅斯在2004年的《紐約客》中寫道。《衛報》將隨機播放稱為“一種截然不同的遇見音樂的方式”。知名學者邁克爾·布爾說，隨機播放讓他的設備變成了“一個驚喜滿滿的寶庫”。

But there was also backlash7 from music purists. “Personally， and I believe I speak for many old farts here， I appreciate listening to music， be it an opera or a pop album， in the sequence in which the artist decided to present it，” marketing professor James Kellaris told Wired in 2004.

但也有音樂純粹主義者對此表示反對。“就我個人而言，我相信我代表了許多老頑固，無論是歌劇還是流行專輯，我都喜歡按照藝人設定的順序來聽音樂。”營銷學教授詹姆斯·凱拉里斯在2004年對《連線》雜志如是說道。

How did it affect how we listened to music？

隨機播放功能如何影響我們聽音樂的方式？

The existence of the iPod wasn’t the only thing that made shuffle popular. Amanda Krause， a music psychology researcher at James Cook University， points out that it was actually iTunes that had the biggest effect.

iPod的存在并不是讓隨機播放流行的唯一因素。詹姆斯·庫克大學的音樂心理學研究員阿曼達·克勞斯指出，實際上iTunes才是最大功臣。

“iTunes really changed the way we purchased music， no longer needing to purchase an album， but having the option of buying single tracks，” she says. “That started a change for the dominant way of listening to music， moving away from albums and to playlists.”

“iTunes真正改變了我們購買音樂的方式，我們不再需要購買整張專輯，而是可以選擇購買單曲。”她說。“這開始改變主流的聽音樂方式，從專輯轉向了播放列表。”

Music piracy also had an effect. In the 90s， downloading one four-minute song could take around three and a half hours. By the 2000s， the mp3 compression format had come into being， and the same song could be downloaded in minutes. As piracy began to increase， people downloading music often went for single tracks， because they were quicker to download and add to a playlist.

音樂盜版也產生了一定的影響。在90年代，下載一首四分鐘的歌曲可能需要大約三個半小時。到了2000年代，mp3壓縮格式問世，同樣的歌曲可以在幾分鐘內下載完成。隨著盜版的崛起，人們常常選擇下載單曲，因為它們可以更快地下載并添加到播放列表。

Now， we have streaming services， which also encourage random listening， because people don’t even have to own the music they are listening to. Generally， says Krause， we tend to like music less when we become too familiar with it. Some researchers have suggested that shuffling is a way of keeping a music collection fresh， while avoiding the overlistening phenomenon.

如今的流媒體服務也讓隨機播放更為流行，因為人們甚至不需要購買音樂便可以收聽。克勞斯表示，一般來說，對于太過熟悉的音樂，我們往往不會那么喜歡。一些研究人員認為，隨機播放是讓收藏的音樂保持新鮮的一種方式，同時也避免了過度聽歌的現象。

How does it work？

隨機播放的工作原理是什么？

Since the early 2000s， people have complained that the shuffle function is not random， often grouping songs by the same singer or genre together.

自2000年代初以來，人們一直抱怨隨機播放功能并不隨機，經常將同一歌手或同一風格的歌曲放在一起。

Steve Jobs offered a Smart Shuffle function in response to the complaints， a function which controlled how likely you were to see songs from the same album or from the same artist grouped together， saying “we’re making it less random to make it feel more random.”

針對這些抱怨，史蒂夫·喬布斯推出了智能隨機播放功能，這個功能可以降低你連續聽到同一專輯或同一藝術家歌曲的幾率。喬布斯解釋說：“我們讓它變得不那么隨機，以使人覺得它更加隨機。”

When the Spotify system was launched， it used the Fisher-Yates algorithm8 for shuffling. It’s the algorithmic equivalent of randomly picking tickets out of a hat until there are none left. But like Apple fans， users began to complain about the function.

Spotify系統推出時采用了費舍爾-耶茨算法進行隨機播放。它好比從帽子中隨機抽簽，直到抽盡。但和蘋果的粉絲一樣，用戶開始抱怨這一功能。

As software engineer Martin Fiedler wrote on his blog in 2007， “the problem with conventional shuffle algorithms is that they are too random. They lack fairness and uniform distribution.” The human brain likes to find patterns and randomness， and will interpret randomness as not really random if the same artist plays more than once in an hour.

正如軟件工程師馬丁·菲德勒在2007年他的博客中所寫：“傳統的洗牌算法的問題在于它們過于隨機。它們缺乏公平性和均勻分布。”人類大腦喜歡尋找規律和隨機性，如果在一個小時內同一位藝術家的歌曲播放了不止一次，大腦便會認為所謂的隨機其實并不隨機。

Fiedler created a shuffling algorithm which Spotify tweaked to revamp their own shuffle feature in 2014， making it impossible， for example， to hear five Billie Eilish songs in a row in shuffle mode.

菲德勒創建了一種洗牌算法，Spotify在2014年對其稍作調整，徹底改進了他們自己的隨機播放功能。例如，在隨機模式下，用戶不可能連續聽到五首比莉·艾利什的歌曲。

What happens to the shuffle function now？

隨機播放功能現在會發生什么變化？

Powers， of Temple University， has been using shuffle since high school. For her， shuffle epitomizes9 the moment when modern technology began to shift the way we consumed music. “Shuffle represents this beautiful mid-2000s moment when people were super excited to have more power over how they listened to songs，” she says， “but it’s also part of all of the things that were happening at that time， like downloading music， and the very， very beginnings of streaming， with piracy.”

天普大學的鮑爾斯從高中時代就開始用隨機播放來聽歌。對她而言，隨機播放是現代科技改變我們音樂消費方式的標志性時刻。她說：“隨機播放代表了2000年代中期的美好時光，那時人們欣喜地發現自己對聽歌方式有了更多的自主權。但隨機播放也與那個時代的其他新生事物相關聯，比如下載音樂，以及伴隨著盜版而來的流媒體萌芽。”

But Spotify’s change doesn’t exactly herald10 a total shift in the way we listen to music， Powers points out. The era of the album as an art form， which lasted from the 60s into the 90s， is pretty much11 over now， and music singles rule the roost12.

然而，鮑爾斯指出，Spotify的變化并不預示著我們聽音樂的方式會徹底轉變。專輯作為一種藝術形式的時代從20世紀的60年代持續到90年代，現在幾乎已經接近尾聲，如今主導音樂市場的是各類單曲。

There’s plenty of research showing that people rarely change their default settings. For example， a Microsoft study found that 95% of users kept all the default features.

大量研究表明，人們很少更改默認設置。例如，微軟的一項研究發現，95%的用戶保留了所有默認功能。

So this change， from album shuffle as the default to something you have to opt into， means more people may be about to start listening to albums in their intended order， even if they’ll then put those same songs on their playlists in shuffle mode.

因此，從專輯隨機播放作為默認設置，轉變為用戶需要主動選擇的模式，這可能意味著更多的人將開始按照專輯原定的順序來欣賞音樂，即便他們之后會將這些歌曲添加到自己的播放列表中隨機播放。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎者）

1 behemoth巨頭。? 2 applaud贊許。? 3 sea change巨大的變化。? 4 come into the spotlight成為公眾關注的焦點。

5 cede放棄。? 6 treasure trove寶藏。? 7 backlash反對。

8該算法由羅納德·費舍爾（Ronald Fisher）和弗蘭克·耶茨（Frank Yates）在1938年提出，是一種高效且公認的隨機化算法。它從序列的末尾開始，每次隨機選取一個元素與末尾的元素交換位置，然后縮小待選范圍。這一過程持續至序列的開始，從而完成整個序列的隨機化。

9 epitomize作為……的縮影。? 10 herald預示……的來臨。? 11 pretty much差不多；基本上。

12 rule the roost稱雄。