13 songs flipped:

My 5-star hall of fame ran out of songs I wanted to demote long before my 4-star hall of fame ran out of songs I wanted to promote, so I was in quite a quandary.  In fact there were 13 more songs in need of promotion than songs in need of demotion by the time I listened to my 4-star playlist in full.

Two of the songs that needed promoting were ones I'd just demoted to make room for Octopath Traveler II, 'Silence and Motion' and 'Sekai no Himitsu.'  It turns out they couldn't be spared and, like Krypton and Jaws of Ice needed to be back in the top tier immediately.

The other 11 songs were ones I'd genuinely not seen the true worth of until now, but wanted to listen to a lot more than the once or twice a year anything beneath the 5-star rating tended to receive.  These were Try Unite, Animal Instinct, Until the end of time, more than words, conduct, Kizunairo Ensemble, mysterious days, Marco Polo, Promises, What Lies Within, and Hunt or be hunted.

The Cranberries got 3 new 5-star songs, Sarah Brightman 2, Loreena McKennit 1, in a rare display of western equality.  Still, the majority of the new songs were Japanese replacing other Japanese.

But the larger issue was how to make room for these new songs when I'd already just went through my 5-star list and demoted anything I could.  I decided to follow the lead of my demotion of Rydia and go after the shortest songs I could cut.  I figured if I had to lose a beautiful melody, at least it could be a short melody so I didn't lose as much music overall as I gained.

In this way I managed to cut some short ditties from Final Fantasy Tactics, FF Tactics Advanced, Final Fantasy 3, Final Fantasy 4, Final Fantasy 5, Final Fantasy 8, Mega Man 2, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses.  None of the songs were weak or deserved it, they just couldn't output as much musical pleasure as songs 5 or 6 times their size.  It was like bullying the weak.  Now at least Rydia, another short song, has company.

But I didn't blindly cut the shortest songs without any attention to their quality, a few short songs which stand out for their epic unforgettable tunes were spared, because I also can't afford to stop listening to them in my 5-star tier.  I would start missing them immediately.  I cut only those songs which were short and not-perfect.  It's a delicate balancing act, but that's what it means to grade on a curve.

All the relevant details can be found, as always, in my music hall of fame permapost.

Meanwhile I'm now up to book #42 of Xanth, Fire Sail.  I'm glad that Rhythm finally got to marry and Kadence finally got to be born -- actually I'm ecstatic for them -- but what about Melody and Harmony?  When do they get to marry?  Shouldn't the triplets have all married together?  Or will they marry offscreen?  That's such a downer when we got to see Rhythm marry onscreen. . .  Well, there are still some Xanth books left, so maybe I'll get to see their marriages later.  The triplets and the twins, the five princesses of Xanth, are basically the main characters of the franchise because they show up in almost every book.  You'd think all their marriages would be worth mentioning.