On the song you skip every time

There's a song you skip every time. You have it in a playlist somewhere, or it's on an album you love, and you've never made it past the first ten seconds. It's not a bad song; you just don't want to hear it now, and 'now' has been every time for years.

This is useful information about a playlist. If a track is skipped at a rate well above the rest, it doesn't belong, no matter how good it is in the abstract. Spotify will quietly tell you what those tracks are if you look. The number is rarely flattering to the curator.

For the rooms here, the test I use is simpler than the data — if I notice that I'm reaching to skip a track when it comes on, it comes off the playlist that week. I don't try to figure out why. Sometimes the track was just wrong for the room; sometimes the order was off; sometimes the track was right and the day wasn't. The track gets to come back if it earns it.

It is a slightly painful test to apply to your own taste, because the answer is often that something you wanted on the playlist doesn't work there. But the playlist isn't a list of music you love; it's a list of music that works in a room. The two are often the same and sometimes aren't.