Ask HN: What music do you like to listen to while you program?

To be honest, music often distracts me, but even distractions can be good sometimes. They get your mind off the issue at hand so you can work on things subconsciously. You might jump to a new issue and find the solution to the old one.

I listen to a large variety of music, but for programming, I normally listen to heavy metal and recently I have been listening to dubstep. It is my favorites of what I would normally listen to, though. I find it best to keep the playlist short, though. After hearing the same thing repeatedly, it becomes background noise and only pulls me out of focus periodically. Like I said, that can also be a good thing.

Daft Punk - Tron Legacy soundtrack

Makes me feel epic and I feel like I am fighting a war with code

I actually have a pretty hard time coding without music, maybe I'm used to it. I usually listen to electronic but nothing too fast. Generally anything that is at the bob-your-head tempo. PhuturePrimitive (lately: Kinetik), Max Melvin, Eastern Sun, Sounds From The Ground. Oh, and sometimes I just _need_ to listen to Underworld, DubNobassWithMyHeadMan. If I don't want to think about putting creating a playlist or selecting an album, I'm listening to GrooveSalad on Somafm.com.

FWIW, my spotify username sanjayU. I would be interested in learning other HN spotify usernames, especially if you like downtempo/triphop/world/etc.

edit: Added phutureprimitive.

Even though I listen to slower/ambient music I can totally understand this. I used to crank up Way Out West and drink lots of caffeine...I would get an amazing amount of work done (at least relative to myself)

rainymood.com -- I've been listening to this 30 minute loop of thunderstorms continuously for over a year. Music with words breaks my train of thought, so this is perfect.