Music to code by.

#1 I usually need a good rock beat but not too loud that it is distracting. I generally tune into a good streaming radio station.

#2 It depends. I have two playlists that I play titled "Music" and "Video Games". My "Music" playlist has all sorts of music ranging from rock to techno. Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, Staind, Korn are good for working out frustrations of coding when things seem to keep breaking down. My "Video Game" playlist has stuff from Final Fantasy (Nobuo is God!), Kingdom Hearts, Chrono Cross/Trigger, ICO, Zelda, and the like. These songs are good for when you are making very smooth progress.

#3 If it's late night and I've been up for 3 days straight coding I'll usually put on something really fast paced with a strong beat to keep me going, like trance music or something along those lines. Normally I listen to anything from 60s style rock to death metal. Some favorites include: SoaD, Tool, Acid Bath, Deadboy and the Elephantmen, Mudvayne, Beatles, Agents of Oblivion, A Perfect Circle, RAtM, The Dandy Warhols, Socialburn, AC/DC.

#4 Nothing but the hum of my fans and harddrive.

#5 AC/DC, A Perfect Circle, Cream/Eric Clapton, Cheap Trick, David Bowie, Deftones, Eels, Kansas, Led Zepplin, Megadeth, Mudvayne, Neutral Milk Hotel, Ozzy Osbourne, Pedro the Lion, Pink Floyd, Queen, Rolling Stones, Stabbing Westward, Staind, Styx, System of a Down, Tenacious D, The Who, Tom Petty, Tool, Type O Negative.

Though usually I write much more efficient code when I am not listening to music at all.

#6 Mmmm music. When I am coding I like mostly one of two types: Trance or Trip-Hop. I have over 2GB of trance (Cuz Brian is the man) and that keeps me pretty well juced, but here is a somewhat good list:

Garbage (I catagorise Garbage, some of it, as Trip-Hopish and I <3 Shirly Manson)
Aerosmith, Def Leppard, U2, The Clash, Van Halen (mmm 80's rock)
Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, The Cure (mmm 80's...whatever)
Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead (Trip-Hop)
Weezer, Foo Fighters, Deftones, Nirvana (90's rock)
DJ Icey, Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyke, DJ Tiesto, DJ Sasha, Johan Gielen (Trance)

I also have a bunch of misc stuff thrown in there like some t.A.T.u. songs, a few sound-tracks, ACDC, some Capoeira beats if I'm in the mood, BNL, Cranberries, Evanescence, Euythmics, G&R, Hybrd, Cirrus, Live, Motley Crue, Perl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, The Police, Thursday, and Wierd Al.

I've got other stuff tossed in.

#7 I tend to go along with Matthew most of the time. When I do stray from the quiet hum of the machine I usually listen to cuts I grabbed from various movie soundtracks plus a few I like from various games. I have a fairly big personal library (used to do extra work as a DJ back when I was a fulltime dance instructor so I have quite a wide variety of music to choose from.) On any given day I might go from Allegria by Cirque di Soleil to the theme from Kull the Conqueror, to Willie the Pimp by Frank Zappa.

#8 Http://di.fm/

Streaming radio is all the music I need these days. When I'm coding, I almost always listen to the trance channel. It has a steady beat and relatively few vocals, both of which do wonders for my concentration.

Now if I could just find a way to listen to DI in my car...

#9 For me the programming juices flow with:

Blondie
Sig Sig Sputnick
U2 (old)
Vangelis
Mike Oldfield
Souxsie and the Banshees
Perl Jam
Cranberries
4 Non Blondes
Bond
Smashing Pumpkins
Tragically Hip

And others. There's a station here in Calgary called JackFM. They don't take requests but play a lot of this stuff (non-mainstream but not trendy hip hop or anything).

Pretty wide range here but works for me.

#10 I tend to code best with Fresh Aire or .mod/.it/.xm type music (mostly from the big '98 compo).

#11 NOFX, Offspring, Green Day (in that order)

#12 I like to listening to old demo music from the Amiga (European demoscene) and some other instrumental music like SPOCK, Front 242, FrontLine Assembly and so on.

#13 I need something with a decent beat and rocky. It depends I guess. My current play list has:

(hed) p.e.
Anthrax
3 Doors Down
Sheryl Crow
Disturbed
Finntroll
Annie Lennox
Garbage
HIM
Life House
Lit
Skin
Smashing Pumpkins
Sentenced
Sum 41

I need to extend it somewhat, it's getting a bit boring now.

#14 Well I think in order to make it better you need to solve 3 problems first...

Disturbed
Life House
Sum 41

;)

#15 Hum... I'm a metal-head myself, so when I'm coding I usually load up heavy-metal (particularly euro-metal stuff like Helloween, Gravedigger, Rage, Gamma Ray, Rhapsody, Nightwish)... When I'm need to stop coding a bit and think, I like to get heavier (Children Of Bodom, In Flames, old Amorphis), so I can run around in the room, headbanging to get the juices flowing...
These last weeks, I've been partial to Theatre Of Tragedy, Tristania (Beyond The Veil) and Evanescene... chicks singing metal... :)
When it's too late at night to listen to metal at a "decent" volume (or else my neighbours complain!), I like to put some demo-songs (mostly old Amiga tunes), or game-music (Turrican 2 rocks!), classical pieces (Paschelbel forever!) or ethnic sounding songs (like Beautifull World)...
As a side note, at my day job, I listen to normal metal/rock on my headphones, but when my co-workers ask me what I'm listening I switch to an alternative playlist with Cannibal Corpse, Slayer, Testament, etc, so that they won't stop and chat about music for about 5 hours (I'm a civil worker, so...) :\

#16 No idea who Life House is, but I personally love Sum 41. Don't care much for Disturbed though.

I tend to listen to stuff like Sevendust, Deftones, Tool, Snot, Sum 41, Rufio, APC, NiN, Linkin Park, Finch, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Incubus, Godsmack, etc...

#17 @Pat,

Each to their own ;-)

@Bryan,

I have no idea who Life House is either, theres only one song on the playlist which came from my ex she-who-must-be-obeyed.

I tend to listen to things whilst coding that I wouldnt otherwise listen to, purely for the beat/speed since it helps me think better somehow.

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#19 I forgot to menion that I really like think tanks it's the best game ever

#20 These days I'm mostly listening to

James Brown
Weird Al Yankovitch
School House Rock
Steely Dan
Moody Blues

Go figure.