iTunes 12.5.1.21 cannot turn off shuffle

Yes! This did it for me. I sort by "Album by artist." Now when I click the play arrow on the top tune of an album, it plays that album in order and then moves to the next album by the same artist. THANK YOU!

Before, it would play the first tune, then play the song (from all my songs) that preceded the current one alphabetically. It was driving me nuts!

This behavior is very annoying. It's actually NOT random however. If you click "Go To Current Song" in the Controls Menu, and then switch to "Songs" in the left hand pane, you will see that songs in your library are playing in alphabetical order, without any regard to what album they are a part of. This is the default behavior in the current version of iTunes, and there is apparently no way to override it. If this is default behavior is by design, it makes me think that whoever is programing this software never listens to music, because it sure defies any musical or artistic sensibility (unless you're really into Dada).

This is a deal breaker for me. If this doesn't get fixed soon, I'm done with iTunes.

Oh, by the way DO NOT REBUILD YOUR LIBRARY. It's a huge waste of time and won't help. This is not a problem with the library. This is a problem with the program's design. Actually it's the problem with Apple, if you ask me.

The solution I found:

In ALBUM VIEW: if you click the "play" triangle icon that pops up over the artwork you will get the whole album to play in order (no shuffle); If you click the "play" icon in front of a song, it shuffles after that song; if you double click the song, it will play the album in order from that song to the end of the album. If you WANT to turn shuffle on after starting from one of the "non-shuffle" modes, click the shuffle icon in the upper center display.

In SONG VIEW: you can only start a song by double clicking, so it will play in the order that is listed (e.g. album by artist by year or alphabetically, etc). If you WANT to turn shuffle on click the shuffle icon in the upper center display.

In ARTIST VIEW: similar to ALBUM view, but it doesn't shuffle when you click the "play" icon in front of the song. Also, if you click the "play" icon of a song, it will play that song, then finish the album you are in and then go on to all the other albums for that artist in order. If you click the "play" icon over the album artwork it will only play the album you clicked on.

Unfortunately, none of this is intuitive, and I've noticed there are slight changes that occur depending on what you do first (for example, once I got shuffle to turn off, it wasn't automatically starting again when I clicked the "play" icon in front of a song).

I don't understand why Apple feels some demented need to constantly tweak iTunes with things that nobody gives a **** about (and which actually, judging by this thread, really irritate most users) and yet, they STILL won't ALLOW us to input or change the freakin' release date of a song. iTunes doesn't even use this field, and when they do they are usually putting in inaccurate and incomplete data. The "fix" is a ridiculously time consuming work around too (if you don't know about this "fix" you just change the media type from "music" to "book" and then you can put in a release date and when you switch it back to "music" it will keep the date).

I found a way to play an album start to finish without shuffling... (Version 12.5.1.21)

1. Get to the album you want either through the artist list or the album list

2. Right click on the album artwork or the album name

3. In the menu that pops up select Play Next. All songs from that album are added to the Play Next list in the order that they appear on the album

4. At the top of the iTunes application, to the right of the currently playing song, there is an icon that looks like a list of items, and it's blue. It is the Play Next icon. Click this button. The songs from the album will be listed here in order.

5. Double click the fist song in the list.

6. The songs will play in order until all songs in the list are finished.

To add another album after that...

1. Get to the album, as before

2. Right click the artwork or name as before

3. Click Play Later in the menu.

4. Album titles are added to the list in order

If you want to turn it off, the workaround for now is: Go to Controls>Shuffle>check "off" and check "Groupings"

In my case, if I selected an artist with say two albums, i-tunes would play the tracks in sequence, but after the last song of the last album, it would shuffle-play a track from a compilation album in my library...same album, but a random track each time

thanks vertigen

Drove me nuts too, but finally found the solution. At the very top-center of iTunes is the box showing the current song playing. To the left of the song title is the shuffle icon and to the right is the repeat icon. (De)select the one you want.

Thanks vertigen - this was really helpful. I am really struggling with ITunes these days. Playlists out of order when created ....random shuffles..drives me insane...old school who likes to listen to albums in the way the artists presented them.....

It's amazing that this was allowed to get through any kind of QA process! Let's hope there is a fix VERY soon from Apple!

Thanks for your help turingtest2. At least it works to play all songs from same artist in order one album to the next.

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

Ha ha ha ha ! Fix it very soon! Ha ha ha ha!

This issue was supposedly addressed in iTunes 12.5.2.36 released October 27^th.

tt2