Ask HN: What do you listen to when coding?

Another important factor: Not too many pauses, or I'll catch myself waiting for the music to continue. That rules out a lot of classical music and "serious" prog rock for me.

In the end, it's a lot of middle-of-the-road metal for me, or light prog. Pandora/last.fm stations for Iron Maiden or the Alan Parsons Project work pretty well.

I will either listen to just one song on auto repeat or a tiny playlist of < 5 songs on shuffle/repeat. Too many songs and I find that I get distracted when the songs change.

At times I also listen to a "white noise" CD called Holosync that is theoretically supposed to help improve neural connections. I like it just because it is noise and not distracting, but I have no evidence to show that it helps me code or is actually improving my brain function.

I've had multiple days where I made fantastic progress while listening to the Notorious BIG's "Hypnotize" on continuous loop for 12+ hours straight. :-)