Sometimes I listen to metal (my default favorite genre) and sometimes I prefer various forms of electronic music: techno, house, trance, EDM, etc. Other times I go with classical: Dvorak, Wagner, Bach, Fauré, Handel, Vivaldi, Philip Glass, Carl Orff, etc.

But a lot of times what I actually prefer is to put on a movie, one that I've seen like 100 times, so that I know it so well that I don't really get drawn into the story and lose focus. I'll turn the volume down moderately low, enough to be audible but not overly distracting, and play The Matrix, Hackers, Antitrust, Sneakers, War Games, Tron:Legacy, Rad, The Social Network, Inception, or something like that and let that serve as my background noise.

- The ferocious virtuoso piano music of Simon Barere to sharpen my thoughts.

- Ervin Nyiregyhazi's renditions of Liszt's 'Vallee d'Obermann' and 'Hungarian Rhapsody #3' for when I need to bring the earthquake.

- 'Metamorphosen' by Richard Strauss when I need something epically gloomy to concentrate the mind.

- Buxtehude sonatas when I need something more tranquil to concentrate.

As weird as this may sound I've been listening pretty much exclusively Chumbawamba while coding. The thing is, I love their intelligent lyrics -- the "fight"/"struggle". Also, listening to the same thing causes less surprises and is in that way less distracting.

I listen to electronic music (minimalism I suppose) with a heavy Berlin tilt. No lyrics, great for focus.

I called the playlist "Elektronische Fokusmusik", here's a Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/user/d64n5jskgvso27feb7rh720tu/play...

My own music collection, which is composed of many genres including a large helping of progressive rock and electronic music, especially chiptune-style.

Complex minimalistic calming and not engaging my brain’s language centers.

Lots of African and lots of tabla music.

I like: Https://musicforprogramming.net/

It's a low effort choice for repetitive noise.

For some reason listening to metal makes me focus so I will often have that on in Spotify. Some bands include Rosetta, Neurosis, and Amenra.

Classical or Jazz