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?
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. <p>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. <p>And I also often prefer quiet when hacking, and only listen to music to drown out distractions.
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.<p>But, I do enjoy some Pop (like Ben Folds and Dispatch), Baroque, Ska and Big Band as well.<p>edit: I also love Gunther and Swizz Beatz. I don't know why.<p>That said, of course, I prefer soothing tapes of Paul Graham's voice.
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.
Recent rotation:<p><pre><code> * Do Make Say Think (recent album I think)
* Alice Coltrane "Journey in Satchidananda"
* Various - "Putamayo World Lounge"
* Hybrid - Live DJ set from Moscow, 2004
</code></pre>
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.<p>While <i>designing</i> though, no sounds at all! Maybe something <i>really</i> ambient to shut out environmental noise, like Stars of the Lid.
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 <i>new</i> music.<p>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:<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsi8ho1PgKM" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsi8ho1PgKM</a><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI5LWwC-cE8" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI5LWwC-cE8</a>
Oddly enough - game and movie soundtracks. Mostly game though, because it's music designed to be ignored.<p>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.<p>Edit: I just listened to Zero 7 on pandora, and it's awesome. I think I've found a new favorite.
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.
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.<p>I also second silence. That's the usual case.
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.
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.<p>Thus, when I want background music that <i>doesn't</i> 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.
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.
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).
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.
Amon Tobin, William Orbit, Miles Davis, Moby, Fatboy Slim, DJ Food, Speaker Pimps, Telepopmusik, Rara Avis, Robbyn Rhodes, Trilok Gurtu...<p>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.<p>
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: <a href="http://www.last.fm/group/Hacker%20News%20%28Ycombinator%29" rel="nofollow">http://www.last.fm/group/Hacker%20News%20%28Ycombinator%29</a>
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.<p><a href="http://zviband.com/2007/09/30/getting-in-the-zone/" rel="nofollow">http://zviband.com/2007/09/30/getting-in-the-zone/</a>
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.<p>Also piano music. <a href="http://jamendo.com" rel="nofollow">http://jamendo.com</a> has some great free music, particularly Rob Costlow.
I really enjoy video game remixes:<p><a href="http://www.ocremix.org/list.php?type=remixes&offset=0&sort=datedesc" rel="nofollow">http://www.ocremix.org/list.php?type=remixes&offset=0...</a><p><a href="http://remix.kwed.org/" rel="nofollow">http://remix.kwed.org/</a>
I listen to 202.fm and c9radio.fr while coding.<p>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.
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.<p>I'll mix in some hip-hop if I'm feeling a burst of excitement.
* metal (heavy metal, progressive metal, death metal, some goth...), rock, jazz, some electronic music... <p>You can check my tastes: <a href="http://last.fm/user/egimenez" rel="nofollow">http://last.fm/user/egimenez</a> :P
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.
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.
Kraftwerk, DMX Krew, Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Autechre, IT & My Computer, anonymous minimal house, Daft Punk<p>Radiohead, Modest Mouse, Jose Gonzales, The Knife, <p>Timbaland
<a href="http://anywhere.fm/luxiou/top_trance" rel="nofollow">http://anywhere.fm/luxiou/top_trance</a><p>A mix of old school and some new school melodic trance :o
try stars of the lid's "and their refinement of the decline." some of the finest ambient music since eno.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Their-Refinement-Decline-Explicit/dp/B000QR0EBW/ref=dmusic_cd_album/103-6827144-3190204?ie=UTF8&qid=1191345943&sr=8-1" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Their-Refinement-Decline-Explicit/dp/B...</a>