On removing tracks

Adding tracks to a playlist is the easy half of curation. The hard half is removing them, and that's where most playlists go wrong over time.

A playlist is only as good as its weakest track. You hear it. After a while you start to recognise which song is the one you're quietly waiting to be over, and from that point the whole playlist tilts a little around that song. If you don't pull it, the room shifts under you.

Reasons I remove: a candidate that auditioned well stops working at the fifth listen. A track I love started feeling out of room as the rest of the playlist changed around it. A piece that did its job but doesn't anymore — sometimes a track is just spent.

Removal isn't a value judgment about the track. Most of the ones I take off I still like in another context. It's a fit decision, which is a different thing. But it has to happen on schedule, or the playlist starts to feel like a museum.