Also, do you think that listening to the same album a lot puts you in the same state of mind and makes it difficult to think outside the square?
But more interestingly, many days it's as if there is some particular "song of the day" that my mind wants to hear, and if I can determine an adequate song of the day, I can get very focused listening to that one song over and over all day. There doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to selecting such a song, and I'll poke around in my music library until I find something that works.
Does listening to the same thing over and over hinder creative thinking? For me, I think it enhances it.
It doesn't help me every day, but ever since I first heard it circa 1998, Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky" has helped me to focus on many occasions. Some of my best work has been done while listening to that song...
Bizarrely, a couple of years ago I was required to do some overnight systems testing, and as I struggled to stay awake, I found myself listening repeatedly to the "Snow Miser" song from the old Rankin & Bass stop-motion Christmas special. I am at a loss to explain why that helped me to focus, or why I even thought to listen to that song in the first place...
I have often wondered why it seems to help so much, but I am not going to complain.
Personally, I go for breakbeat, old skool trance (Germanic Trance circa 1990-96), Experimental Techno.
Can't say that listening to the same album has ever made it difficult to think outside of a square. In fact, I used to listen to albums that I knew I was productive on whenever I needed to be productive, regardless of what I was busy with.
I find though, that music generally helps to get me through the mechanical motions of doing something that I know what/how to do - coding, documentation, etc. If I need to think about what to do or how to do it first, pure silence (circumaural Sennheisers) works best.
Hand Covers Bruise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SBNCYkSceU
In Motion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yczul_609Gg&feature=relat...
Outside of that, anything techno-trance or industrial works. I definitely don't like too many voices, it's distracting.
http://www.dropbeatsnotbombs.com/2011/11/tatw-400-live-sets-...
(For those unfamiliar: http://www.garethemery.com/podcast/podcast_182/)
spotify:user:torres87:playlist:0rJuefgfGm6Ms99hYuq051 http://open.spotify.com/user/torres87/playlist/0rJuefgfGm6Ms...
I don't mind the adverts and the channels I listen to have no-repeat workday playlists.
Services like spotify or wimp are interesting but for me, they require to much focus whilst I'm coding whereas the radio is simpler.
Somewhat related: I've found audio of rain, wind, chimes, rivers, but never any ambient people noise--i.e. groups walking around on the street and talking in the distance.
And I agree, a given album will put me in the same mentality every time.
Everything else is distracting. Apocalyptica is a favorite for coding, but anything that fits (a)/(b) would do.
And yes, listening to the same thing puts me in likely the same mood.