can’t believe i went and listened to that mixtape… you said it was bad but i thought maybe it was good… NOOOOO!! ARGH
Trance through noise blocking earbuds. Let them listen to all of the Neil Diamond they want…I am in my own world.
John Coltrane is music - I don’t what the rest of you are talking about.
I usually just have my whole collection on shuffle, although I tend to go on sprees of next-mashing when I can’t be satisfied…
When I really want to concentrate, I prefer Joe Satriani (flowing guitar without lyrics).
Ambient stuff just makes my brain work harder trying to recognize patterns that aren’t there, so it distracts me quite a bit…
I have read that brain of a programmer works like an artist. Same zone on the brain works while programming or painting / sculpturing.
And this part is also activated while listening music.
For this reason, you may not be able to code hard if you are listening music, because it occupies the same area in your brain.
For that reason, many programmers listen too noisy music like metal or hard rock. It is difficult to concentrate all notes of this kind of music, so you don’t focus on music. It is just better for isolating programmer from outside world.
My fovourite music is the silence after midnight, only noise of cooling fan, and ticks of keyboard.
For day time, I prefer Evanescence and other female fronted metal bands.
While resting, I like to listen Kitaro, however I can’t focus on programming while listening Kitaro because I can’t stop focusing on music.
How many times does it usually take to not bleed from the ears anymore?
Avalaaaaaaaaaaaaancha!!!
(Really inspires me)
i’ve listened to 2 track till now, what’s wrong with it? 
well, me my self prefer to bang my head with some hardcore heavy metal
salyer is a good choice always
any metal heads here? \m/
Generally I agree with those folks who say its better to go soundless. However, that’s not an option when you work in a huge cubicle farm.
I generally try to listen to NPR, as its a good way to at least keep informed. But when I switch to music, oddly I’ve found that its the most mellow stuff I have that seems to work best for me. Within that, the worst stuff seems to work better for me that the good stuff. If its music that truly rocks, I find myself wanting to stop and listen.
So my music to code by ends up being (whole albums, in order):
Arrested Development - 3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days in the Life.
Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Welcome to the Pleasure Dome
The Art of Noise - In Visible Silence
Miami Vice (Music from the Television Show)
(after that, I’m stuck with good mellow stuff)
Grateful Dead - Terrapin Station
Jethro Tull - Warchild
Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow (a bit short, sadly)
Too Funny… had a little lolocopter when I started the tape.
I did the same thing 18 years ago with Metallica. All of my co-workers listened to country full blast and I was getting sick of it. I bought AJFA from a pawn shop as a joke and blasted away.
About the third or fourth playthrough just about everyone had fallen in love with the CD. Wish Steve Vai and Rush had resonated as well.
Dang, I hate you! I’m actually getting ready to download most of these tunes.
grrrr.
I don’t care what people say… without a constant stream through my Bose buds i wouldn’t get jack done in our office. The music is only occasionally registering in the foreground. It’s kinda like my 5-speed Legend, people tell me how happy I’d be if I got an automatic… but I’m not unhappy. I don’t even realize I’m shifting.
There are some tracks that are voodoo to productivity though (unless it’s time for a brain break)
Natalie Grant - Held
Yellow - Oh Yeah
War - Low Rider
Steve Vai - Deep down into the pain
… and I’m guessing anything Shatner
My tastes vary so I have a couple streaming music sites I keep on hand, as mentioned many times before, without vocals.
Classical - KXPR Capital Radio - http://www.capradio.org/programs/classicalmusic/default.aspx
Trance/dance - Trance Lab with Lord Bass - http://www.trancelab.com
Various (Rock, big band) - Pandora = http://www.pandora.com (for example: http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh26717058879895890)
I used play yodeling music while coding. Oh, what fun 
or torture
Um, the best programming music is the Quake II Soundtrack (1997) mostly by Sonic Mayhem
Jeff, I happen to know for a fact that you have the largest collection of 70s pop tunes imaginable!
You don’t know this, but 70s pop songs are the crux of my super hero powers. If I am humming a pop tune from the 70s, I can make incredibly poor decisions about how to abuse my body (caffeine, nicotine, etc.). It is not a top tier super power like invulnerability or flight, but you have to take what you can get.
ABBA FOREVER!
nothing like the beegees for beating that 3 o clock slump
I’m just testing the vebvisum http://www.webvisum.com/ captcha solver, and it appears your famous ‘captcha’ still is robot proof!!
Using Solve captcha on the page resulted in the captcha answer ‘109K readers’ and using OCR on the image itself yielded no result.
Where’s you gone? Haven’t seen a new post in 5 days.
Everything OK?
I am surprised that no one yet mentioned the classic Badger Badger Badger song:
http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/
There is no way that I can sleep while listing to it. To me the song in like mental caffeine – a little bit goes a long way.
Ahhhhh! Having My Baby might be one of the most painful yet enjoyable songs of all time.
Wow - I’ve been coding to that mix tape all morning. Tie a Yellow Ribbon and Torn Between Two Lovers are great!
Personally, I like to code to the Backstreet Boys, A-Teens, and ABBA (no - really. Ask anyone who knows me with a splash of Puccini. In fact, my current playlist has 5 different versions of Dancing Queen! Woot!