IRL, I once listed my favorite bands across metal, rock, hip-hop, electronic, and drum n bass and was hit with “that’s standard programmer music”.
As someone with little physical human contact outside of work and actually meeting devs outside to find out they listen to the same music was a little surprising. That was a tiny sample though and this is the web though and people are from all over, what kind of stuff do you listen to? Favorite genres, artists, or just “everything” even noise?
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Most of the music I listen to fits under the alternative umbrella. While I never actually spent a lot of time directly on /mu/ that type of online music culture circa ten years ago has been very influential on my music taste. A couple of years ago I also had a big emo phase, in particular 90’s emo and 10’s emo revival. I also listen to a lot of punk and post hardcore.
Mostly:
Halftime and future bass, stuff like ivy labs and mad Zach, and two fingers
90s alternative like pixies, nirvana, aic.
30s and 40s jazz and blues
Polyphia typically
Progressive metal & related genres (currently listening to the newest Eidola album on repeat, and some Dance Gavin Dance), and bebop jazz.
But I don’t program; I’m mostly cleaning up artwork for commercial printing.
I’m an open format DJ, so I listen to everything except Hick Hop, and that annoying sub-genre of electronic music that consists of little more than someone repeating the same word or phrase over a simple drum beat. Have no idea what it’s called, but kids under 30 seem to love it and I just don’t understand why.
I like to listen to human music:
Ahh yes, human music. I like it.
My man!
I code in silence.
But when I listen to music I REEEEAALLYYYYY L I S T E N. Stuff like Tool, Coin Locker Kid, Kaoru Abe - and I find it impossible to concentrate on code while those play, they mentally drag me in.
Same. I can’t even have understandable lyrics if I’m going to concentrate.
My work playlists are completely different. More cinematic scores, world music, ambient whatever. There is some metal that bridges the gap, but it has to be very death.
I’ve started listening to stuff like Babymetal because it’s in Japanese and my brain doesn’t get distracted by words in a foreign language.
I’m a fan of japanese indie like Gesu No Kiwami Otome.
I have some Japanese metal bands in the rotation for just this reason. Metal works in a lot of languages, actually.
I need something without understandable lyrics (unless I’ve listened to that song many times before) and something that pumps me up, but doesn’t cause headaches. So, 8-bit music and cheesy / ‘epic’ cinematic scores work well.
Well, unless it’s 4 o’clock in the morning. Then nothing beats classical music. I’m never as productive as I am at 4 AM, listening to Beethoven and friends.
Mostly rock & metal (Examples being: Architects, Beartooth, Chaosbay, While She Sleeps, Dark Tranquillity, Ice Nine Kills, Periphery, Babymetal, & Hanabie.. Though, throw a piano solo in and I’m sold (Corelia’s “Treetops”, for instance — I need to explore more symphonic metal. Not that Corelia is– anyway).
With that said, I’ve also got a few outliers that mostly include game & TV OSTs (Hoyo-MiX, Crush 40, kessoku band). Add in a few tracks from LiSA, and “Ghost” by Hoshimachi Suisei & the cover by Rachie to really leave my Spotify Recommended dazed & confused.
TL;DR: The spectrum of rock & metal all the way from Incubus to Lorna Shore, with sprinkles of J-Pop, Electronic, & random OSTs to really hospitalize my Spotify Recommended.
Babymetal is probably the best head down coding music I’ve ever experienced, have listened since 2016 or so
Mostly Bach and MASTER BOOT RECORD.
MBR is on my coding playlist for sure
Stuff like Tycho - Dive for when I really need to focus.
Depends on what I’m trying to achieve. Coding something that requires less thinking but staying more focused and keeping up energy - techno, EBM/industrial, phonk. If it requires more cognitive effort, I choose more background-ish music like lo-fi hip hop. When not coding - same plus synthwave/vaporwave, jazz, funk
I usually don’t, which is completely sacrilegious as a musician, but I’d rather be playing it myself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If I do bother, it is usually Broadway (have not seen that here yet!), the pop music of my childhood, classical, classic rock, or anything I have ever performed before. Around Christmastime I have a dedicated Christmas playlist which is just Christmas songs.
50/50 if I can have music on while programming. Sometimes it becomes background noise, sometimes my brain starts focusing hard on the music and I need to not have that.
When programming I tend to like music that is instrumental, like synthwave and chiptunes, as well as some light on vocals trip hop and industrial. I can listen to rock and metal too, but it tends to grab my attention more than I like when I am trying to get in the zone.
Either https://musicforprogramming.net/ , some vaporwave, some really extreme/cavernous death metal or noise rock. Free jazz. Possibly some instrumental kraut rock if I feel like it, the motorik beat is great for focus.
