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?
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 golden age hip hop, metal and its various subgenres (heavy metal, doom metal, death metal etc), classic rock, indie, post-hardcore, and pop-punk
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.
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.
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.
I listen to everything. My main jam is melancholic singer-songwriter stuff or songs that tell stories, but I also listen to electronic, metal, folk, world music, whatever I enjoy. Last year my most-played stuff was Nothing Else Matters from the Wednesday soundtrack (0.01%), Sabaton (0.1%) and Japanese enka songs. The year before it was German singer-songwriter Anna Depenbusch, who I had just discovered.
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.
Hardstyle, (Electronic) Hardcore, DnB, Trance. Don't really mind metal etc either, but I generally don't listen to it myself. Most pop music bores me because it's too slow. I need speed and intensity but I don't really mind repetition.
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.
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
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.
Yeah, same. Post-metal or thereabouts towards jazz can work too IME. Stuff like Russian Circles, Earthless, Elephant9. But stuff like Waveshaper and Amynedd are often safer bets.
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.
When I'm trying to focus I tend to listen to System of a Down or Rammstein. The rest of the time it tends to be pop music from the radio (usually BBC Radio 1) or lofi.
I feel like it's very varied, but I'm not one to listen to metal or much rock. What I listen to changes from time to time.
I know the meme/prejudice of programmers listening to metal, and having long hair. I can't say I've ever felt like it was confirmed or justified. But it's not like I have that much exposure or insight to many either.
I'm not even sure I can list genres; I feel like it'd be too many and unspecific anyway. Chillhop, chillsynth, hip-hop, deep house, some pop, some german and japanese music, some chiptune, some classics of the last century; some are shared on https://soundcloud.com/kissaki
It's probably easier to list what i don't listen to: most country, hip-hop, rap, overly-noisy metal (where you can't really understand what the singer's grunting about), most pop.
Lately i've been listening mostly to Tool, Jinjer, Asian Dub Foundation and Thievery Corporation.
Tomorrow, who knows, maybe Madredeus or Garbage (the old stuff).
I listen to DJ sets from DJs of São Paulo mainly (I'm living in São Paulo now), because I like to know the local techno scene. The main genres that I like are Funk (from São Paulo, check out DJ Bonekinha Iraquiana), electro (check out Cashu), techno (check out Kontronatura) and some house (check out DJ Bassan and Delcu)