Work playlist

[TallDave]

Any other engineers, software or otherwise, have a playlist for working they want to share? (Yes, I'm really this bored.)
I like to start off the morning with a little Radiohead -- Backdrifts, Let Down, Everything In Its Right Place, Myxamatosis. Gets me in a coding mood.
After that it's usually a dose of Placebo -- Bright Lights, Speak In Tongues, The Neverending Why, Julien, Haemoglobin, Oxygen Thief, Meds, Pure Morning, Taste in Men, Slave To The Wage, Nancy Boy, Bruise Pristine, I Do, Bionic.
I've also developed an affection for Smashing Pumpkins' Adore and Mellon Collie albums.
For frustrating problems or approaching deadlines, I'll put on some Nine Inch Nails.
I also have the Tiesto Club Mix, about 7 hours of it, with some great bits sampling The Faint's The Geeks Were Right and Lily Allen's The Fear. Nice when I want something energetic and light.
Before heading home, there's the extended version of Eric Serra's Little Light of Love from The Fifth Element. Love that chorus, and the reference to Pharos is amusing.

[rjaypeters]

I can't do technical work while listening to anything with a beat (rock is out).

For technical work, it gotta be classical, maybe some jazz.

[Betruger]

The more abstract the better. No lyrics.

[TallDave]

Yeah, I have that issue with some of the more technical stuff. I keep some trance and classical around for nonlyrical music. But business analysis work is a little less demanding in that respect.

That reminds me, I need to find an mp3 of John Benbow's Bach organ work. Always reminds me of Asimov's Foundation series I read to it growing up.

[93143]

Weird. I have no problem coding to, say, the soundtrack from the SNES game "Vortex" (all techno, and rather good at that), or sometimes even J-rock (I can't understand most of the lyrics, which helps), but I cannot pay attention to anything else while listening to Beethoven, or Gershwin, or most other non-pop music.

Bach's The Art of Fugue is an exception, because it was my music of choice during a particularly sadistic take-home math exam during my M.Sc. It's what I use when I'm doing hard math on a deadline.

[MSimon]

Well I'm an ancient. I like

10,000 Maniacs - Because the night.

Kim Karnes - Betty Davis Eyes (recessive gay gene there)

Dave Mason - World in Changes

Linda Rondstadt - Tumbling Dice

Outlaws - Green Grass and High Tides

Jefferson Airplane - Rejoyce

Jefferson Airplane - Fat Angel

Quicksilver - Who Do You Love

etc.

Lyrics don't interfere with my concentration for the most part.

[rjaypeters]

My musician friends describe me a slightly musical. I cannot think of a time when I have not had some music in my head. That playlist seems to be pretty random. It not an ear-worm, I can change the song (right now it's "Tumbling Dice").

[Betruger]

I can only work with lyrics if the work is something I've already integrated. Something whose fundamentals I "own" already. If it's something new, that I'm trying to play with to figure out what makes it tick, hearing lyrics is interference because it's as if the singer's mood and personality's suggesting things that have nothing to do with the object of study. Whereas abstract music can "mean" anything. To me, the abstractness of something like Autechre makes it easier to break and keep broken any dogmatic bias in studying new things. The unpredictability of patterns in the music usually ends up suggesting useful perspectives I wouldn't have thought of on my own.

I guess I have some low level synesthesia or something. I do this for a number of things. I also have this issue where I've trouble controlling forgetfulness: as a kid, when I wanted to "erase" some incorrect idea (e.g. forget the answer to a problem so I could redo the problem from scratch) I'd imagine a large stream of numbers, like a waterfall. It'd scramble that memory into useless noise. Now this same trick sometimes goes outta control and it'll kick in when I'm trying to remember some minor but important detail. And music totally keeps this in check, for whatever reason.