I am learning how to program, thought it would be interesting to see what music is best for programming. It was said that music limits your creativity in programming (Blink: Malcolm Gladwell, I believe).
Things with interesting music, but without lyrics. Nine Inch Nails' "Ghosts I-IV" is a good start, as is the NIN ambient 'music' of the sound-track to the original Quake.
The Canadian indie label Constellation has a number of artists that make good coding music, including Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, and Do Make Say Think.
Other relevant artists include: Mogwai, Boards of Canada, Dirty Three, Explosions In The Sky, LCD Soundsystem, Monolake/Robert Henke, The Necks, Ratatat, The Flashbulb, The Samuel Jackson Five.
There's a few particularly good movie soundtracks I like, as well: Koyaanisqatsi, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, and Blade Runner.
Another good source of quiet, interesting, music is videogame soundtracks. I'm particularly fond of the soundtrack to Ōkami, and the OCRemix tributes to Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, and Doom: http://ocremix.org/albums/?&offset=0&sort=nameasc
Agreed on many of these. The "Post-Rock" genre, which usually is anthemic and instrumental makes great music for concentrating on intensive tasks. A lot of ambient electronica can be good as well, but sometimes the repetition gets monotonous.
Boards of Canada, Explosions in the Sky, Ratatat, F*ck Buttons, Tortoise, and El Ten Eleven have been in constant rotation for me lately. I often use them as seeds for Pandora as well. Works like a charm.
I forgot to mention: the other day I stumbled across instrumental cello music by Zoë Keating, and immediately thought "Wow, this'll be good coding music": http://music.zoekeating.com/
Having listened to music mostly to block out background noise for a long time, I've recently discovered that listening to brown noise (such as at http://simplynoise.com) is great when I just want to focus.
I listen to it all the time. It's wonderful. I used to listen to music, but lately I've realized that I'm not smart enough to think of two things at once.
I've had tinnitus for as long as I can remember, so "silence" for me means non-stop high pitch ringing. Thus, I use Pandora just about every hour I'm awake and around a controllable sound source.
For coding I usually pick techno, electronica, soft rock, classical, or more piano/instrumental types. It mostly depends on mood. I tend to avoid things with lyrics for coding.
More specifically, I've been addicted to Explosions in the Sky and Trifonic for months now.
Something I've listened to a lot, otherwise I get distracted by trying to pay attention (mostly to the lyrics). Lately, I've been listening to Girl Talk's All Day http://www.illegal-art.net/allday/ a lot, but I also like putting some NIN and Tool into the rotation as well.
DJ Girltalk or anything else I've heard a million times. The more I've listened to something the less I pay attention to the words and the more I let the beat take over...
