
Hacker Music? - nextmoveone
Really wondering? What kind of music do you guys listen to? I realize everyone is different, but is there a majority?<p>Can everyone comment with their favorite artist or group + genre?
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Goladus
Favorites are Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Chopin, and Beethoven but like dfranke
'omnivorous classical' is a pretty good description. But I will pretty much
listen to anything.

Some of my favorite performers are John Eliot Gardiner, Andre Previn, the
Kronos Quartet, Cecelia Bartoli, Murray Perahia, Mitsuko Uchida, Emmanuel Ax,
Alison Hagley, Bryn Terfel, and Yo Yo Ma.

And I also often prefer quiet when hacking, and only listen to music to drown
out distractions.

~~~
Goladus
Eh, how could I forget Helen Grimaud:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne_Grimaud>

She has a great recording of what is probably my favorite piece: _Brahms Piano
Concerto no. 1_

[http://www.amazon.com/H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne-Grimaud-Brahms-
Piano-...](http://www.amazon.com/H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne-Grimaud-Brahms-Piano-
Concerto/dp/B000006CS6/ref=sr_1_2/103-6892741-1586267?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1191339306&sr=1-2)

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falsestprophet
Most often I listen to indie music. My favorites are Rilo Kiley, The
Decemberists, Metric, The Arcade Fire, Feist and Stars. It doesn't look like I
have any peers here.

But, I do enjoy some Pop (like Ben Folds and Dispatch), Baroque, Ska and Big
Band as well.

edit: I also love Gunther and Swizz Beatz. I don't know why.

That said, of course, I prefer soothing tapes of Paul Graham's voice.

~~~
SwellJoe
I'm exclusively indie rock. You're a bit softer in taste than I, but there's
some overlap. The Arcade Fire is one of the best bands playing right now.
Their live show is astoundingly good...best I've seen in years.

My faves are: Spoon, Midlake, Fugazi, Death from Above 1979, Voxtrot, Mission
of Burma, Cat Power, The Lemonheads.

When I'm working I'm most productive with things that have no lyrics or
illegible lyrics, but are familiar. Jesu, The Fucking Champs, and electronica
like Booka Shade and Apparat. Embarrassingly, perhaps, I'm totally loving
working to old school metal lately--some from before my time, actually, but I
like it anyway--Judas Priest, in particular. Also stuff I liked in high school
and college: Carcass, Godflesh, Neurosis.

I made a list of my favorite tracks at emusic a while back (need to update it
with Arcade Fire and a few other recent faves):

[http://www.emusic.com/lists/showlist.html?lid=564452&p=1](http://www.emusic.com/lists/showlist.html?lid=564452&p=1)

You can't beat emusic if you like indie music. It's cheap, non-DRM, and
they've got nearly all of the best bands and labels.

~~~
agranig
Then you should try <http://wazee.org/> as streaming radio.

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chadboyda
Anything Trip-hop (Massive Attack, Morcheeba, Portishead, Sneaker Pimps,
Bjork, AIR, EBTG, Zero 7, Tricky, etc.)

~~~
imsteve
Music with VOCALS?

You guys have some _weak_ taste in programming music. Only the hardest
electronic for me. Stuff that makes you feel like adrenaline is being injected
into your brain with a firehose, yet predictable and non-distracting. Who else
listens to that?

~~~
joe_fishfish
Are you talking about Vitalic, by any chance?

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dfranke
Omnivorous classical, but particularly the Renaissance and Baroque periods. My
favorite composers are Bach, Dufay, Ockeghem, Morley, Byrd, Mussorgsky, and
Respighi. Ensemble Unicorn is my favorite group of performers.

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menloparkbum
While programming, I prefer either baroque classical music or weird glitchy
sounding electronic music. When I'm not programming, anything goes.

~~~
dfranke
I can't listen to Baroque music while coding. The same brain cells that I'm
trying to use for coding get tied up with unweaving the strands of melody.

~~~
imsteve
Yeah I tried baroque but it made my mind wander too. Distractions must die.

~~~
menloparkbum
That's interesting... I specifically chose baroque vs. other forms of
classical music because it is more repetitive. Bach is way easier for me to
zone out with than Beethoven. ;)

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cmars232
Recent rotation:

    
    
     * Do Make Say Think (recent album I think)
     * Alice Coltrane "Journey in Satchidananda"
     * Various - "Putamayo World Lounge"
     * Hybrid - Live DJ set from Moscow, 2004
    

In general while hacking, anything ambient, repetitive (electronica) or
without vocals (jazz/classical), or vocals in a language I mostly don't
understand (tropicalia, death metal, stereolab) is a great soundtrack.

While _designing_ though, no sounds at all! Maybe something _really_ ambient
to shut out environmental noise, like Stars of the Lid.

~~~
buss
Stars of the Lid is great, thanks for the recommendation. I tend to listen to
ambient stuff when coding. Shpongle, Bonobo, Boards of Canada, Andrew Coleman,
Bill Laswell, Birdy Nam Nam (definitely not ambient), Broken Social Scene are
all good.

~~~
gensym
I've got to second Boards of Canada. Also, Four Tet, Alan Sparhawk's solo
guitar (his band, Low, is some of my favorite music for when I'm not hacking),
Sigur Ros, Collections of Colonies of Bees, Mouse on Mars, Do Make Say Think,
Squarepusher, Dirty Three, Six Organs of Admittance, and Labradford

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mynameishere
Generally, familiar music. I can't think of any other commonality beyond what
stems from the fact that programming doesn't facilitate the ability to listen
to _new_ music.

I was going to say--oh, Debussy and Chopin. But why be a snob when I also
listen to early Madonna music, and stuff too horrible to mention except
anonymously:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsi8ho1PgKM>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI5LWwC-cE8>

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trueshadow21
um, im classic rock, led zeppelin, blue oyster cult and stuff

i guess im a little different than most programmers/hackers judging by the
other posts

~~~
weber
silence anyone?

~~~
nirs
Nothing like silence.

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fuelfive
Oddly enough - game and movie soundtracks. Mostly game though, because it's
music designed to be ignored.

I knew a coder who listened to the Muppets Christmas Sing-Along on repeat for
about 10 hours during a marathon coding session. At about hour 9 she started
to feel like she had lost her mind.

Edit: I just listened to Zero 7 on pandora, and it's awesome. I think I've
found a new favorite.

~~~
derefr
About game soundtracks: they're also designed to be catchy given very
constrained sequencing. On, say, the PS3 or the Wii, you can just have a full,
ambient MP3 and nobody will bat an eyelash. But on, say, the NES, you had to
make every tone count, just like you had to make every pixel count. This
pushed games composers to focus on the core melody, giving the world such
memorable tunes as Mario and Zelda (Tetris was just a conversion of a real
song, interestingly.)

Of course, after these well-thought-out melodies are born, they can be dressed
up all you like. <http://ocremix.org/> is the exemplar there.

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nextmoveone
I figured I'd start.

Kanye West (& The Roots) + Hip-hop

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nostrademons
Current favorite hacking music: Pink Floyd, Goo Goo Dolls, Guster, Real McCoy,
Dar Williams, bunch of college acapella, Van Canto, Crash Test Dummies, Sophie
B. Hawkins, Savatage, Nightwish, Postal Service, Narnia soundtrack, LotR
soundtrack, some Dream Theater.

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anson
gotta love guitar hero music :).

<http://anywhere.fm/derek/guitar_hero> <http://anywhere.fm/derek/freezepop>!

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david
Mostly progressive rock, jazz, power metal. Favorite artists: Spock's Beard,
Savatage, The Strawbs, The Tangent, Gentle Giant, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious
Monk, Stratovarius, Rhapsody, Dream Theater, Sonata Arctica.

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yters
Uh, gregorian/rennaissance/etc. chant? Classical too, though don't really know
who's playing usually. I like Chopin alot. The best is music that sounds like
thinking.

I also second silence. That's the usual case.

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apgwoz
Punk/Hardcore (bands like Bane, Paint it Black, Modern Life is War, Good Clean
Fun, Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuits) mostly, with some Pink Floyd and Violent
Femmes thrown in there for good measure.

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jsackmann
I'm a musician, and particularly a composer/arranger/orchestrator, so it's
hard for me to listen to things without having them distract me.

Thus, when I want background music that _doesn't_ distract me, I go with
something I've listened to about 3,000 times in the past. Doesn't really
matter what it is: Schubert sonatas, 70s Herbie Hancock, showtunes
...something that requires the same number of brain cells to take advantage of
as a library that I wrote a long time ago and have been using ever since.

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jdavid
I used to love happy hardcore, acid jazz, progressive house, and electro
metal, but now i mostly listen to electroclash, eurotrash, synthpop and all of
the other hipster variations.

~~~
umjames
Thumbs up for happy hardcore and acid jazz. I love highly active, fast techno.
Anything from the breakbeat, big beat, 2-step, hardcore, happy hardcore,
gabba, drum & bass, and jungle subgenres. The problem with rap for me is that
the lyrics distract my thinking while coding. Other types of electronic music
don't keep me energized.

But when reading something more substantial than, say, looking something up in
documentation, silence is excellent.

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scw
Ambient. It never taxes my brain and helps me focus: Brian Eno (Music for
Airports, Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks), Sigur Ros, Four Tet, Cliff
Martinez (Traffic, Solaris).

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oditogre
Most anything Orbital, Sasha and John Digweed - Northern Exposure, most NIN
remix / single releases, Any Tool (but mostly Lateralus), Enya, Sarah
McLachlan - Remixed or Surfacing, sometimes other stuff of hers, Brian Eno,
Yoko Kanno, sometimes Audioslave or APC's first albums, Mushroomhead, TCM's
Vegas album, and as others have said, glitchy electronic stuff - I'm
especially partial to Download's stuff and some other cEvin Key stuff.

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dcurtis
Amon Tobin, William Orbit, Miles Davis, Moby, Fatboy Slim, DJ Food, Speaker
Pimps, Telepopmusik, Rara Avis, Robbyn Rhodes, Trilok Gurtu...

Those are just some of the artists I've been listening to recently. Usually
chill/ambient electronica with good repetitive beats-- the best example is
Angel by Massive Attack. I turn that way up and hack the night away,
sometimes.

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thehigherlife
I made a group for Hacker News members to join for last.fm It will create
charts and statistics if the group reaches over 15 members. Here is the link:
<http://www.last.fm/group/Hacker%20News%20%28Ycombinator%29>

~~~
joe
I has joined your group.

Also, this is me: <http://www.last.fm/user/codepolice>

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zviband
Even thought I don't listen to rap that much, Method Man works for me. I find
rap like that, where it's just a constant flow of lyrics and rhymes, really
gets me going.

<http://zviband.com/2007/09/30/getting-in-the-zone/>

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aaroniba
I like ambient electronic music for coding. Check out:

<http://www.limbikfreq.com/>

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npotter
I fluctuate between indie-ish stuff and techno type things. I'm not up on my
music categories, but bands like Say Hi To Your Mom and spoon.

Also piano music. <http://jamendo.com> has some great free music, particularly
Rob Costlow.

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daltonlp
I really enjoy video game remixes:

[http://www.ocremix.org/list.php?type=remixes&offset=0...](http://www.ocremix.org/list.php?type=remixes&offset=0&sort=datedesc)

<http://remix.kwed.org/>

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randallsquared
I listen to 202.fm and c9radio.fr while coding.

If I listen to something local to my disk, I get distracted wondering what's
coming up next, or otherwise fiddling with the order of play. If that's not in
my control, I don't think about it.

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german
Lately I've been listening Jack Johnson, but I like any kind of music.

I also love to dance Salsa :P

~~~
davidw
+1 for Salsa. It's also a great way to meet women while doing something fun.
And it is a learned skill, something you can become good at if you practice,
and it makes you seem a bit less nerdy, I think. My wife agrees.

~~~
german
hehehe, It is a great rhythm, and not so hard to learn. That kind of music is
the best for dancing!

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matth
Bonobo, Clint Mansell (The guy who scored The Fountain. Try listening to Death
is the Road to Awe, it's worth your time), Talking Heads, Moody Blues, Pink
Floyd.

I'll mix in some hip-hop if I'm feeling a burst of excitement.

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edu
* metal (heavy metal, progressive metal, death metal, some goth...), rock, jazz, some electronic music... 

You can check my tastes: <http://last.fm/user/egimenez> :P

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nextmovetwo
Lots of Hip-hop and classic rock; Some metal (lots of 3 Inches of Blood
recently); some indie (i guess) stuff (Fall of Troy, etc); some Funk and some
Jazz; the occasional orchestral track never hurts.

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imsteve
80s porn music.

~~~
AdamG
"I only watch it for the music."

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davidw
I love eclectic bands with a ska/horns bent, like Fishbone, The Cherry Poppin'
Daddies (from my hometown, Eugene, Oregon), Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, plus
other stuff like the Voodoo Glow Skulls.

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ivankirigin
Kraftwerk, DMX Krew, Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Autechre, IT & My Computer,
anonymous minimal house, Daft Punk

Radiohead, Modest Mouse, Jose Gonzales, The Knife,

Timbaland

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luxiou
<http://anywhere.fm/luxiou/top_trance>

A mix of old school and some new school melodic trance :o

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ardit33
House music, downtempo chill type.

Avoid music with vocals, or that is too upbeat/danceble type, as it will be
hard to concetrate on anything.

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dzohrob
try stars of the lid's "and their refinement of the decline." some of the
finest ambient music since eno.

[http://www.amazon.com/Their-Refinement-Decline-
Explicit/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/Their-Refinement-Decline-
Explicit/dp/B000QR0EBW/ref=dmusic_cd_album/103-6827144-3190204?ie=UTF8&qid=1191345943&sr=8-1)

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mattculbreth
Most active for me while working (from iTunes): Skye, Coldplay, Keane,
Morcheeba, Afro Celt, Zeppelin.

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rms
<http://www.last.fm/user/kevin143/>

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ews
Telefon Tel Aviv! or any kind of good intelligent dance music.... (check
lastfm...)

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adnam
\- Whatever is on radio 4 (bbc.co.uk/radio4/) \- Jungletrain.com

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jsmcgd
Jackson and his Computer Band. (pardon the pun)

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Alex3917
Maurice el Medioni's album Descarga Oriental.

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cellis
late, i know: tiesto(some), atb(more), always looking for more will check out
z7.

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gregp
luke vibert all day long.

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trekker7
80s and classic rock

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chexov


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smg
yanni

