There is a very important point missing from this: volume. Despite the decibel range being vast, you really only have three options when choosing the volume of your music in regards to how it affects your brain.<p>At higher volumes, music will drown your internal monologue. If you find that your brain tends to constantly bikeshed instead of being productive, louder music will probably help with this. The downside is that if you are the type of person who focuses on lyrics instead of melody, you may find yourself more easily distracted by them. Something else to consider is that music containing very loud bass (think dubstep) might actually be detrimental to focus at higher volumes.<p>At lower volumes, the issue with lyrics goes away, but your internal monologue persists. A counter-intuitive benefit (though usually at <i>very</i> low volumes), is that you tend to lose a lot of the quieter frequencies in the music, and your brain starts to process <i>everything</i> differently while it attempts to fill in the blanks or discern unintelligible lyrics. This can actually lead to more creative potential for some people. I can reliably recreate this on-demand, and it has greatly helped with both songwriting and programming over the years. Though, to be honest, I end up blasting death metal 99% of the time, because it's just more fun when it's loud.<p>Then there is the Goldilocks zone. The perfect volume for you, and you alone. It is a very small decibel range and can be very difficult to find, especially considering the drastically different audio production between albums. But if you can manage to find it, you'll notice that lyrics and dynamics don't distract you, it drowns out the monologue, and likely helps with creativity.<p>Source: None. This is completely anecdotal, albeit from many people.