Work music. Some people love it – others, not so much. We are fans of listening to something while working here at Asian Efficiency, if only to drown out background noise and office chitchat.
The question then becomes what sort of music is best for working on different types of tasks. We personally like:
- Instrumental/non-vocal music for tasks that require concentration.
- Vocal or hard-hitting music for administrative or non-complex tasks (like uploading content into WordPress).
Quick Summary
Let’s skip the summary this time, and get right to the music.
The How
Our recommended music player is Spotify. It’s free/not-too-expensive, and most of what you want is available on there.
In lieu of that, you can go with iTunes or old-fashioned Amazon MP3s.
If you’re working in an office or other environment where it isn’t appropriate to have your speakers going, then some isolation earphones will help. We have used and like:
Shure SE535 earphones.
The Music
Movie Soundtracks
Soundtracks from motion pictures are awesome for working. They usually invoke the emotions of the film, and are typically non-interruptive. My friend Alex calls them “epic music”.
They are great for tasks requiring large amount of concentration – such as writing, coding, or any creative or verbal tasks. Here is some of what we like with a sample. If you don’t see the Youtube clips (in case your RSS client doesn’t support it), make sure to click here to see the whole post.
The Social Network
The Social Network (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon). Best soundtrack ever. This will change your working life.
Limitless
Limitless (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
Inception
Inception (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
In the same genre, here’s a list of similar soundtracks that we like working to.
- Pirates of the Caribbean (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Batman Begins (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon) and The Dark Knight (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Sherlock Holmes (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Valkyrie (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Band of Brothers (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Gladiator (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Anything Hans Zimmer (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Anything Trent Reznor (iTunes/Amazon).
Video Game Music
Even if you’re not a gamer or even a casual video game player, video game music today is usually on-par with most motion picture soundtracks. As with all non-lyrical music, it is great for tasks requiring concentration or verbal thought.
Final Fantasy 8
Anything Final Fantasy (Spotify 1/Spotify 2/iTunes/Amazon).
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
Here are some other similar soundtracks from video games that we like.
- Call of Duty Black Ops – Zombies Soundtrack (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Command and Conquer: Generals (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Mass Effect (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon), Mass Effect 2 (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon), Mass Effect 3 (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Compilations of video game themes (Spotify/Spotify 2).
Classical Music
Classical music isn’t quite as fashionable nowadays as it used to be, but it’s still great for working to. You’ve probably heard of the Mozart Effect and how classical music can induce “short-term spatial-temporal reasoning enhancement” – basically, it improves your performance of certain tasks.
We like:
- Johann Sebastian Bach (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- Beethoven (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
- More realistically, most classical music is bundled as compilations from different composers, usually with some other songs thrown in (Spotify/Amazon).
Other Non-Lyrical Music
Other noteworthy mentions for music without lyrics go to orchestral and instrumental covers, be they of movies, video games or pop songs. All are great for working on tasks that require a certain degree of concentration, or the formation of words.
Foreign Language Music
Music in a language other than English can be fun to listen to.
We’ve found that what it’s suitable for is largely dependent on your fluency in the language. If you don’t understand it that well, it can be used for tasks requiring concentration (your brain processes it as sound, but not as words). If you’re fluent, I would treat it the same as lyrical music (see below).
Lyrical Music
This includes any kind of music where people are singing words that can be interpreted (includes pop, rock and other genres).
As fun/enjoyable as it can be to listen to popular music, when it comes to work, it is best reserved for administrative or non-verbal tasks, be that balancing Excel spreadsheet numbers, or copy-pasting things online.
For fun, we’ve included some hip-hop and rap music that a lot of people we know seem to like.
Mo Money, Mo Problems
Mo Money, Mo Problems by The Notorious BIG (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
Billionaire
Billionaire by Travie McCoy and Bruno Mars (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
Good Life
Good Life by Kanye West and T-Pain (Spotify/iTunes/Amazon).
Music here is largely up to individual taste, but here are some other starting points:
- Topsify playlists on Spotify (UK/US).
- A number of Spotify apps built around music discovery.
No Music
Sometimes, the best music is no music. There are just some tasks that can’t be done with sound in the background. In this case, isolation earphones still work quite well to block out noise and chatter, but you can also try a white noise generator like this one.
Our Playlists on Spotify
For those of you with access to Spotify, here are some of the playlists that Thanh and I have made public on our personal accounts (with a bonus from Dr Ngo):
- Work: The Social Network OST.
- Work: Limitless OST.
- Work: Gotan Project.
- Work: Video Game Themes.
- Work: Valkyrie OST
- Work: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- Dr Ngo’s Money Music.
- Dr Ngo’s Work Music.
Got any music that you enjoy working to? Let us know in the comments below!
Photo by: ^riza^
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Great list.
I’d like to listen to Cinemix (http://www.cinemix.us), a free online radio station playing soundtracks only.
Rgds,
Christoph
Nice find – that’s a brilliant idea to have a radio station of just soundtracks. Thanks for sharing this.
I really like dubstep for administrative work)
I’ve been getting into dubstep too. Who are your favorite DJs?
Nice post! Definitely gonna try those movie soundtracks..
The Mozart-effect is BS tho ;-)
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289610000267, basically, listening to mozart CAN boost performance in certain tasks, but not more than other types of music), but I like listening to classical nonetheless..
-Jeroen
Hehe thanks for referencing this Jeroen! Let’s roll with the placebo effect on this (or are you going to tell us that’s invalid too!). Just kidding, always great to hear from you.
How about Tron Legacy, brilliant working music.
Yes, totally agree. Forgot about that one. I’ve added it now to my own playlist on Spotify :) Thanks Geoff!
I really like the limitless soundtrack! thanks for a great article.
Glad you liked it Vince. Thank you as always for dropping a comment.
Great article. Thanks!
Thank you John!
Great tips in here of choice, me personally really like super monotome music that is very basic but get me worked up like minimalistic/progressive trance like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu3AgQ-t2sU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxC7Xd7RjgQ
To “advanced” melody seems to distract me more then get me focused…
I think a lot of people are similar in that regards. Thanks for sharing!
I plan my work with silence or quiet classical music, the do the work with a directory full of techno by Orbital and Shpongle. The relatively fast beat seems to keep my brain on task. And like you said, no lyrics. I’d love to find more music that works as well for me as these two bands.
Sometimes I listen to ska (I have a station on Pandora) when experimenting with new ideas, and the lyrics can be a problem. When evaluating options I like a French jazz station, TSF. I get about one word in 10 so it’s not distracting, but the organization is different from the way English is organized, which seems to encourage my brain to find new ways of arranging things.
Great article, thanks.
Hey Kurt I’m sure you’ve tried to “pandora” these bands. Another alternative is to look on Amazon and see what similar bands/albums are suggested. You can also do something similar in Spotify where it will find similar songs/artists.
That’s an interesting concept on the foreign language. I seem to get not distracted at all when I listen to foreign music because I somehow just don’t process the lyrics.
Thanks for sharing my list.
What I like to do these days is I’ll have motivation music playing during my morning routine.
When it’s time to begin work I always play the same song (Social network soundtrack). It’s my “trigger” that it’s game time.
I’m actually digging house these days for work. It pumps me up without distracting me.
That’s a great trick – I know you have a lot of these triggers and hacks where you condition yourself to do certain things or get yourself in a certain state of mind. Good stuff.
Great post. Social Network, Inception, Batman Begins & The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are all on my list. I would add Tron: Legacy to this list (awesome!) and any recording from E.S. Posthumus (epica music) although “Unearthed” is the recording from them that I normally turn to.
For you Star Trek fans (I know you’re out there), the soundtrack for The Motion Picture is great to work to. For classical music fans, I find that Bach’s Brandenburg Conciertos are fantastic while I work.
Could go on for hours (Jazz, Electronic)…great to see your reader’s feedback on their music tastes.
Hey Chris thank you for sharing. I’d love to hear more from you on Jazz and Electronics. I’m getting more into those genres of music.
And I agree, Tron: Legacy is awesome (like Geoff mentioned). Been working to that lately too.
Hey, cool blog! I just found it looking for different perspectives on how to use OmniFocus with the GTD system. There’s definitely a lot of useful/insightful information here.
Just wanted to contribute to this post with a few recommended soundtracks to work to:
On Spotify:
Max Payne 3 OST by HEALTH
The Life Aquatic OST
Not on Spotify:
Lost in Translation
Mysterious Skin
Fight Club
And here are a couple good background internet radio stations I enjoy:
http://dublab.com/
http://somafm.com/groovesalad/
And here’s what I’m using for earbuds these days:
http://www.klipsch.com/image-s4i-black-in-ear-headset
Keep posting! I’ll be watching the RSS! :)
Check out http://www.getworkdonemusic.com/, feels like a productivity afterburner!
This is an awesome find, thank you.
Open Spotify or iTunes and type “Bahramji”.
(My favorites are Sufiyan and Sufi Safir)
It’s the best music (for me !) for working, along with Mozart, of course.
But very different…
I have two different streaming options set up. I also have it set to stream through my phone instead of the computer. Streaming can eat up a lot of bandwidth and can affect overall network performance, so I try to be a good corporate citizen.
Anyway, I usually listen to jazz, classical, new age, or some variation thereof. Vocals of any kind tend to distract me.
Thanks Michel for the Bahramji recommendation! loving it.
Classical all the way for productivity boosting, I’m a fan of Baroque (Vivaldi, Bach, …)
But the earphones you suggest make me raise my eyebrows for two reasons:
1) They’re earphones which mean a pain for me, even the highest quality Audio-Technicas or custom-made fit-to-your-ear ones. I just can’t stand those things in my ears.
2) The one’s you suggest are of very low sound quality which means too much distortion that works on your nerves and thus decreases productivity.
So got good isolating full-size cans instead to let you increase productivity in the office.
I’m not going to givr you model numbers because my choice is way too expensive due to being an ausiophile. One tip could be the Denon AH-D-600 though, which is less than half of what I usually pay for my cheapest phones. For me that’s MP3 quality but for most people it will be a revelation.
Never put Bose and sound-quality in the same sentence though, Bose is nothing but bass and effects.
And B&W is awesome quality for speakers, just not for headphones (yet).
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