How to tell if music is good.

Listen to it while you multi-task.

It is of course a little subjective though, but it means if you listen to music that appeals to you and is good to your tastes, you will probably find that you will concentrate more on the music than the other tasks being done.

I was reading through my new research student's literature review today. It was a 100 page document, though only 73 pages of it was the literature review. I don't know if it had to be that big since there was quite a bit of repetition in some areas. As I was going through it reading and correcting some issues and commenting on points I didn't understand or would like clarification on, I found that for most part, having music going on wasn't a problem. But every so often, when a particular song came on, I would find myself more listening to the song than focussing on the document in front of me. The solution of course was to listen more intently or skip the song, or just work through the document more slowly (which is what I ended up doing). But it certainly goes to show at least when your brain wants to prioritise things it will without telling you.