What's the best music for coding?
Different strokes for different folks - I know. But for me, I usually download the last nights Phil Hendrie Show which is a 3 hour show but usually comes to about 1 hour and 45 minutes b/c commercials are edited out. That usually causes me to start busting out laughing a few times so it ensures I start the day in a good mood. [BTW, a caller called in who was driving to work listening to Phil. He was laughing his a33 off. Anyway, at the next light or somewhere, a guy in another car said “Lex and Terry” are really funny, huh?” So the dude wanted Phil to make some “No I'm not listening to those handj0bs, Lex and Terry”. I'm a devout Howard Stern fan, but him and the “Good Christian Folk” down this way would have some issues for sure - so he's not on any station I can find and won't be on Sirius. I can get Opie and Anthony on XM (I originally thought they sucked but Skicow showed me the light) but they are too distracting because they always have strippers and chicks on their show. But if you ever get a chance to Listen to Lex and Terry, do whatever you have to, including gouging your eardrums out with a Pen, to keep from hearing them. They are the medussa of the auditory experience. It's so lame, unoriginal and boring it hurts, and they are sooo in love with their stuff. It's really brutal).
Back to my original point. In general, Techno/Trance/Club remixes does it for me. Lords of Acid, Prodigy, DJ Acosta, Fat Boy Slim (Right Hear Right Now is probably the reigning King of music I love to code too), Chemical Brothers. But that's my “Work coding music”
At home I prefer a little Ghetto and roll with Fifty Cent, Geto Boyz, NWA, older DMX, NAS, IceT, Body Count and of course Tupac. Usually, whenever I start ranting on my blog and wake up in shock that I actually posted something like that, it's due to a few too many Rum & Cokes and Tupac. And beleive it or not, listening to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata or Barber's Adagio often have the same effect as listening to Tupac's Hit em Up. I have a whole compliation of hard core stuff dubbed “Music to Drive by“ {get it?} but I'm sure I wans' the only guy who thought of putting all of his most hardcore rap on a few cds and giving it a name like that.
I tried coding to metal - but it does nothign for me. Metallica and Anthrax will work in a pinch, but that's about it.
Not sure exactly where Tool comes in, or A Perfect Circle - but they kicks sooooo much a33 that they are always cool to code to. Beavis and Butthead were right “This is the coolest band I've ever heard or seen“
Then there's that whole area of stuff that makes me wish I was deaf - which always kills any desire to code. Dave Matthews band - uuuuuuuuh. I know, I'm the only person in the world that doesn't like Dave Matthews, but every time I hear it it makes me wish I was an 18 year old girl that just got accepted into Chi Omega while driving a Hybrid Yugo and eating Tofu. Nothing against sorority chicks - being a TKE myself I spent quite a bit of time with them, I just don't like feeling like one and Dave Matthew's music, I suspect, is laced with Estrogen.
So what do you listen to when you code?