In college, I had a friend who always studied with his music on. He was having a really hard time with chemistry -- or was it bio? -- and was worried that he was not going to make the cut for pre-med.
I suggested he try studying without music.
After his next test, he sought me out and thanked me. His last score was at least a grade level higher than he had been achieving.
He'd always studied to music. He didn't know the difference, until he experienced it.
Admittedly, individual reactions vary.
However, I also worked with some people who were very aggressive multi-taskers and rather proud of their ability to juggle numerous assignments and responsibilities.
Whenever I touched something they had worked on, inevitably I immediately ran into numerous and significant errors, including quite often apparently a very superficial approach and lack of insight into deeper implications as well as relationships to a broader context.
I've rarely encountered a noise, or music, embracing person nor a heavy multi-tasker, who actually performed well.
Many of the best developers I worked with at Big Co, after our "cubification" (or "veal-ification", as it were), spent numerous hours in the evening actually getting the meat of their design and programming work done, at home. There they would be, on IM.
And as a virtual presence became increasingly tolerated, they signed up for as many days out of the "farm" as policy would allow and they could manage without getting into political issues.