Ask HN: Heavy Metal Music for Programming? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Heavy Metal Music for Programming?

29 pointsrullopat53 comments

Listening to chillout or electronic music playlists for programming really isn't for me, what about heavy metal programming playlists? I don't see many around.

View on HN

You might be interested in post rock / post metal - heavier sound, no lyrics.

Best of post metal: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7HPigooLkKvn3Enr5ilQwS?si=...

For example: Pelican, Russian Circles, Isis, Cult of Luna

Best of post rock: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ebKOuGNfJ5g8RdtbEBHxe?si=...

For example: This Will Destroy You, Jakob, God is an Astronaut, Maybeshewill, The Evpatoria Report

I quickly skimmed the post rock playlist, and I highly recommend the band Tides From Nebula, which isn't on that list. "Higgs Boson" or "Tragedy of Joseph Merrick" would be two songs to easily get hooked on as a fan of the genre.

I would also like to mention 65daysofstatic, which surprisingly were also absent on the playlist.

Aye - I only listed more common bands. You won't find Godspeed You Black Emperor or Mogwai on the list either (which I found absurd) ;) The list gives an idea what post x is and gives examples, so goal achieved :)

Still I double your recommendations. 65daysofstatic might not be what OP is looking for, but is still a great band. For more similar see math rock.

The Evpatoria Report is one of more obscure post rock bands amongst listed. Still, their Maar album ranks amongst my favourite, with highlite of Mithridate, hence the inclusion (apropos of none)

I like to listen to doom/stoner metal because it's not too distracting and usually minimal lyrics. Sleep, Slugdge, Bongripper, Elder, Electric Wizard etc. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DXdpVGstUksUC?si=...

I second this (most excellent) recommendation and suggest, in particular, the band "Windhand".

For example, Windhand's song "Three Sisters":

https://youtu.be/0FkhnGdwDcw

Another point for doom/stoner metal: Samsara Blues Experiment got me through my OS class in college. It's pretty easy to get into too since a most albums are uploaded in full as single videos to youtube. Just beware that one of the big channels uploading videos, Stoned Meadow of Doom, is questionable at best in the scene since operates on a pay-to-play basis.

Otherwise, if you don't mind some harsh vocals I also recommend atmospheric black metal, as well as drone metal. Caladan Brood, Saor, Eldamar, Sunn O))), and Summoning are some of my faves.

Could you clarify that note about Stoned Meadow of Doom? I mentioned them in my sibling comment - I'm not affiliated, have just been enjoying the channel off-and-on for years, so I'm curious.

Riffpedia has a better article[0] then I could write, but the TL;DR is SMoD used to try to do DMCA takedowns against over stoner metal Youtube channels, as well as running a pay-to-play (as in, the bands pay to play) festival for a couple years. The latter being the bigger issue from what I've heard; stoner metal ain't exactly a well paying genre to begin with, the fact the SMoD basically makes money off uploading other peoples albums (he keeps all the ad revenue) and then makes bands pay to play in his festival was widely seen as a "dick move".

[0] https://riffipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Stoned_Meadow_of_Doom

Another second here. There's a YouTube channel with full stoner metal albums (Stoned Meadow of Doom: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCknVpWR6m2Ijzkqo-aPXs_g ; been around for quite a while, though I have a vague fear of them disappearing due to the obvious copyright infringement...).

As for specific bands (though I don't think on the stoner metal spectrum, but ones I love): Baroness, Sub Rosa, King Woman, Bell Witch, Mastodon.

And for something a bit farther off from metal, but still in the spirit of heavy, nearly ambient - The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyORieDhpkg ) / The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation (which is apparently the live version of "The Kilimanjaro...").

Mount Fuji / Kilimanjaro Darkjazz are both great bands, featuring the same members, but being two different projects (hence the difference in sound). You might have a look at Kammerflimmer Kollektief or Nadja, if you're looking for recommendations :)

I would listen to all of Evoken's work while I was programming lol. One day the earbuds had accidentally unplugged and people were looking at me like "HOW CAN THIS MAN FOCUS?!?!?"

A Stoner/Doom playlist isn't complete without Sleep.

For me, programming music can't have lyrics or I'd get distracted from my train of thought. When I listen to metal while programming, I search for instrumental metal. Not necessarily heavy metal, I usually find instrumental power metal or progressive metal. I hope that gives you some hints of what to search for...

Ditto. I prefer progressive rock or classical music while doing deep-work. Instrumental, specially ambient or Middle-Eastern, is nice too.

English vocals are distracting during work, but strangely I don't mind any other language (Turkish for example), because my brain cannot fathom it, and remains focused.

Yeah, "wildly" (as in _very_) foreign languages work well.

I'm glad I discovered The Hu (for example [0] -- edit: forgot about the intro on this one, might want to fast forward a minute), with which I am usually not worried to be distracted because of the lyrics.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZUr0BEfE

Two recommendations for you then - Bloodywood, Indian folk metal (in Punjabi and/or Hindi apparently); and Babymetal (BABYMETAL), Japanese "kawaii" metal (apparently) (one of my favorite songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8pcFhPZQYg ).

Didn't know "Indian folk metal" was a thing, but Bloodywood is bloody fantastic. (I speak Hindi).

If you like The Hu, try Yat-Kha [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXgzc--MgvA

My solution to this is to use music in languages I do not know. Ukrainian techno music, k-pop, italian operas, german speed metal, etc.

This used to be how I experienced American music from the radio as a kid before being able to understand the lyrics.

This is a great way to do it: http://radio.garden/ (a map where you can listen to radios from around the world)

ever try Ramstien, or Einsturzende neubauten

For metal I can just listen to EHG because even with lyrics no one can tell what the hell Mike IX Williams is saying.

Animals As Leaders is a pretty good choice. Their music is instrumental, and so complex (yet enjoyable and very heavy) that you won't even bother to analyze it :). For music with vocals, I find black metal good for focusing. Cthonic is one of my favorites!

I've been on a Jazz kick for the past few months -- cocktail jazz, cooking jazz, lounge jazz playlists on spotify -- but it's starting to lose its effect coding.

Animals as Leaders is exactly the tangent I needed. Thanks!

Thanks for this! Cthonic looks interesting. What album would you recommend starting with?

Takasago Army is great both musically and lyrically. It is a fictional story with historical (World War II) background. You really have to dig into the translations of the lyrics to understand it though - they are in native Taiwanese dialect.

Animals as Leaders wakes up my brain like nothing else. I think my brain is vaguely aware that what I am listening to is some sort of complex puzzle, but I don't have the knowledge of music theory to crack it, so instead it's just primed for whatever coding / math tasks I'm working on that I can solve.

I signed up just to tell you this: Listen to the band "russian circles", it's favorite programming music. Occasionally heavy, no distracting vocals, interesting rhythms (but not too technical to distract), overall very good background music.

Neat to see them mentioned a few times. I found them randomly through Spotify a while back and tonight they were pretty good.

any specific band?

If you like Russian Circles for programming, I also recommend Cloudkicker.

Insomnium, Before The Dawn, Cult of Luna - and similar Nordic Melodeath bands. I used to hate the harsh vocal trend, but then discovered the vocals become something I don't focus on and get distracted by.

Daylight Dies and similar - Spotify has some good "Instrumetal" playlists.

Raised Fist - although the vocals are "In your face" contrary to the above, I'm finding that similar hardcore gets the synapses firing.

Insomnium is my go-to music for late night coding. It instantly puts me in a flow state.

I sometimes play the Metal Detector station on my SomaFM app, and I’ll save the songs I like on Spotify. I agree with some other sentiments on here of Doom/Stoner/Sludge metal being good background music. I still don’t know why Sleep’s Dopesmoker album was removed from Spotify. Minimal lyrics. Was my favorite background album for work.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'm listening to Sleep now and enjoying it X)

I poked around a bit, found this note on Sleep's Facebook page (a comment and reply from private individuals in the comment chain, thus names removed): "they removed it when the rights transfered from southern lord to Third man records. Weeks ago." That was on this specific post: https://www.facebook.com/officialsleep/posts/pfbid02LsRuZ82M... .

I listen to metal a lot when coding, but I don't have a specific playlist. I either just let Youtube figure out what to play for me based on whatever they've learned about my tastes, or I use Audacious with my local mp3 collection and put it on shuffle mode.

About the best I can come up with by way of specific recommendations are this series of "Heavy Metal Classics" collections where somebody bundled a bunch of songs into a single YT video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Dgl5xkh4E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f25PW3vdEa4

https://youtu.be/FBSvXvzOt4c

and so on. Search "heavy metal classics" on Youtube for more. Some of these are pretty good.

Maybe not that many tracks on my metal list but at least there is some, I hope you find something to enjoy :)

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/e17c930e-6e8e-4f29-856f-b9...

It's a pity that I don't have Tidal...

You can just view/copy the titles and search for them on whatever service you're using to find music?

But here you go, some of my favs from that playlist:

https://saoir.se/track/tidal/108030305

https://saoirse.kvm.vufuzi.se/track/tidal/83981884

https://saoirse.kvm.vufuzi.se/track/tidal/109311763

Would definitely also recommend Finntroll (especially this album) and Alestorm (wearing a we are here to drink your beer t-shirt right now xD) too! Some Korpiklaani could fit this playlist pretty well I think.

I'm a fan of curated radio, so when I was In a Metal Mood[1], I tuned into https://www.radiotunes.com/metal which is run more or less by the same people who do the dance music at https://www.di.fm/

[1] I got to spend a week tearing out Wordpress and replacing it with a just-good-enough replacement that fit our needs. No database, no comments, no plugins, no operational issues.

I like to keep the theme going sometimes and listen to The Algorithm; Brute Force is probably my favourite

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CDS9gmdHtB8

I can't recommend Lightning Bolt's album "Wonderful Rainbow" enough. It's super heavy, but repetitive enough that I can easily focus while I listen to it.

Ron Jarzombek is an insanely talented composer and guitarist who makes ff-the-wall instrumental metal that suits this purpose very well. Check out his projects Blotted Science, Spastic Ink, and Watchtower.

A demonstration of his 12-tone composition system is here [1] if you want an idea of the sort of craziness that he's capable of :-).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpoL0QBKxHA

Absolutely. Saw everyone live back in the day: Def Leppard, Ozzy, RJD, Iron Maiden, Lita Ford, Yngvie Malmsteen, Aerosmith, Metallica, Ratt, Wasp, Korn...

This is a timely post for me! I've never been big into metal, but just recently I've found that metal often helps me focus better than the classical, alternative, indie-rock, and hip-hop I usually listen to.

I've had Bloody Kisses by Type O Negative on repeat lately, but I will be combing this thread for recommendations!

Not all of these are precisely metal, but I also enjoy:

- All Rights Removed by Airbag

- Facelift by Alice in Chains

- In Absentia by Porcupine Tree

- Houdini by Melvins

Yes. Put some ear plugs in and crank up the Elder or Pelican. Way up.

Filtered through (muffled by) ear plugs, heavy metal is a good accompaniment to software work.

Lately I often switch from metal to "viking/norse" music for programming. I would recommend a lot of what ends up in Fimbul Radio [0], and it being a radio takes away the burden of choosing what to hear / when to switch.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcm6Sj0_W1E

To name a few: YOB, Animals as Leaders, Neurosis, Pelican, Russian Circles, Isis :)

Ministry, esp. old Ministry. Hypnotic and repetitive.

it depends on the pace of work, but i usually have music, or soundtracks from various video games.

ive wondered at times how well the elevator ride would go if the canned muzak was replaced by inhouse creations.

something like ministry is a pace to keep while rote typing, but things like elder scrolls, or torchlight, when the task is about developing an abstraction or an unorthodox proc or func

Oh for sure. I prefer female-fronted metal for this... Xandria, Arcadia, Unsun, Nightwish, Sirenia

Can't go wrong with Meshuggah. Plenty of chunky instrumentals

I listen to dream theater all the time while coding

Reply on news.ycombinator.com