Out of order?

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old fuddy-duddy (even though that particular ship sailed many, many years ago), I'm very much in Team Adele in the Great Spotify Shuffle Debate. While I'm no fundamentalist petitioning for the removal of the shuffle button altogether, I certainly welcome the fact that the company has done away with the policy of playing albums on shuffle by default.

As the singer argued, fighting the corner for artists everywhere, "We don't create albums with so much care and thought into our tracklisting for no reason. Our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended."

Also in agreement is the Guardian's Michael Hann. He writes of "the primacy of the album as an entire listening experience", and gives a few strong examples of LPs that were sequenced to perfection by their creators. One very recent record that springs to my mind in that respect is Low's superlative HEY WHAT; not only is each individual song brilliant, it's also enhanced further by careful juxtaposition with its neighbours.

Hann acknowledges, however, that Adele is effectively pop's King Canute, "fighting a losing battle" in trying to hold back the tide. Listener habits are changing - and indeed have already changed, with attention spans shortening and record companies responding by demanding albums that are front loaded with big hitters.

And in any case, as many musicians have observed, the battle for unshuffled albums is hardly the most pressing at the present moment. Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwart's response to the news was typical: "Mighty as she is, if Adele thinks the shuffle button is the big issue with Spotify then that's her privilege talking. What about 'the story' of how streaming models systemically underpay music creators?" What indeed. Time to work your magic again, Adele...