[0] https://musicforprogramming.net
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From their about page :
Through years of trial and error - skipping around internet radio stations, playing our entire music collections on shuffle, or just hammering single albums on repeat, we have found that the most effective music to aid prolonged periods of intense concentration tends to have a mixture of the following qualities:
- Drones
- Noise
- Fuzz
- Field recordings
- Vagueness (Hypnagogia)
- Textures without rhythm
- Minor complex chords
- Early music (Baroque, lute, harpsichord)
- Very few drums or vocals
- Synth arpeggios
- Awesome / daunting / foreboding
- Walls of reverb
Music possessing these qualities can often provide just the right amount of interest to occupy the parts of your brain that would otherwise be left free to wander and lead to distraction during your work.
Recently, I stumbled upon the following as well and like them maybe a bit more:
- A strange, isolated place (ASIP)
- Headphone Commute
This is pretty much all I listen to nowadays while programming or commuting.
https://open.spotify.com/user/22p7kffssooevmhucglnnz6ci/play...
(e.g. John Williams, Tyler Bates, Hanz Zimmer, James Horner, Alan Silvestri, Danny Elfman, Alexandre Desplat, etc).
There is a smattering of video game soundtracks in there (by far my favorite composer is Christopher Tin), but the key is avoiding any 8-bit or classic "beep beep" songs. Those would break my coding flow.
Ironically, as uninspired as modern Marvel movie soundtracks are, they're perfect for concentrating on code, with a random uplifting nudge or a drop into quiet here and there.
Most often this: https://www.di.fm/goapsy
Occasionally hip-hop, pop, or "other".
That isn't a genre, but each soundtrack offers has its own themes and style. Depending on mood you can have techno (Hackers/Matrix), fantasy (LOTRs/Interstellar), Pop (Greatest Showman/Guardians of the Galaxy), Regional Styles (Last Samurai/Moana), or even just calming/relaxing (Sims 3: Pets).
PS - Try not to dismiss soundtracks just because you never liked the movie/game. I never played the Sims 3, let alone the "Pets" expansion, but the soundtrack remains me of SimCity's sound.
I'm frankly not in the best setup for this kind of work but music like this makes me feel like I am the calm eye of a hurricane, letting me do what I need.
Jazz is good also, but that can sometimes get annoying after awhile or can be too exciting and distracting.
Or brain.fm if I really want no lyrics and to focus.
Or similar.