I listen to a whole wide variety of music:
SimCity 4 Soundtrack
Kerli
Nightwish
Gorillaz
Eiffel 65
James Horner
Owl City
Seether
Bullet for My Valentine
Breaking Benjamin
Theatre of Tragedy
Basshunter
Evanescence
Pillar
Skillet
I just use SmartDJ on whatever genre I want to listen to and then favorite songs I want to keep and they download. Zune Pass ftw.
I also listen to soundtracks from a variety of movies with music I liked, for example The Village had pretty nice music. I like listening to Celtic flutes of sorts. And if I remember and am in the mood, I'll put on ambients of forests, rain, or storms. It's never consistent, I always have to change it up or I just wont be able to focus.
I have quite a few soundtracks from various movies, but I must say that recently the one from How To Train Your Dragon has been the best. Awesome music, right there.
Whether or not you enjoy that kind of movie, the soundtrack is still great for a listen.
I'm pretty eclectic. I listen to whatever's on my iPod, or on youtube. Right now I'm listening to...
Albums:
Turn On The Bright Lights - Interpol
Du & Jag Döden - Kent
Vapen & Ammunition - Kent
A Rush Of Blood To The Head - Coldplay
XX - Xx
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix
Kid A - Radiohead
The Best Of - Radiohead
Brand New Eyes - Paramore
Black Holes And Revalations - Muse
Funeral - Arcade Fire
Songs:
Vinternoll2 - Kent
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Another Layer - Jon Mclaughlin
Uprising - Muse
Return Of White Rabbit - Ash
Song from Pristiq commercial - Unknown Artist
Erasus (Instrumental): - Subkulture
With games specifically, Dragonforce is a nice choice because of the video-gamish tune.
I saw Dragonforce last year in Wolverhampton - they were awesome!
I heard they weren't really much of a concert band. But if you want to hear 8-bit turned into metal, they're great at that. I think someone actually converted some of their songs into 8-bit and those sounded awesome. Very fast paced boss music style.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
@Muz, that's some pretty cool 8-bit music - they sure do convert well! And as for the concert-band comment, i can assure you the crowd interaction was pretty good and they played up to the crowd nicely. I was having a cool bit of interaction with the bass player as he was goading me into head-banging faster during the end of the night when they played Through the Fire and Flames, and my mate who was with me was getting acknowledged by another of their players (i forget which one now) about half-way through. Defo worth watching if you're a fan
It depends what I'm doing; anything graphics-wise I'll have a radio play or a panel show playing in the background - iplayer is my first port of call for background ambience. If I'm drawing full scenes or creating levels I'll have the game's music playing, but I do like the sound of Adam's idea of creating to music of a matching 'mood'.
But if I'm coding I can do nothing but code - I find any voice or music completely clouds my focus and disrupts my logic and thought processes - I simply cannot do it. One of the Pickford Bros, Ste, brought this up the other day and says he experiences the same, too, and then wrote a blog about it. Interesting how he, much like me, is the artist of his gamemaking machine and is much more comfortable with the art side of game creation.
I listen pretty much random stuff. Sometimes Zero 7, stuff from Om Lounge albums, and other ambient/chillout songs. Sometimes screaming dudes like Slipknot, Mushroomhead and Mudvayne. Some dnb too, mainly from Liquicity channel on Youtube and Bassdrive radio on Winamp. Aaaand Super Mario 3 first world theme. Its just awesome.
Depending on the game I'd try to listen to something with a similar feel to the game I'm trying to make. Other than that, anything electronic will do. These days I'm not so bothered about background music while I work, but I still can't concentrate if there's a TV or radio around.
I've started listening to all the old stuff I have on CD but never got round to converting to MP3 - I have hundreds of albums that I haven't listened to in years, just because my computer is the only thing I still have that plays CDs.
You forget how good a lot of stuff is if you don't hear it for a while.
Just finished listening to Beth Orton, and now playing "Club Mix 99" - such a great year for dance music (guess I'm showing my age there, being old enough to have gone clubbing in 1999). Speaking of which, when did U2 and Nirvana become "classic rock"?
Also listen to The Kid Carson Show on The Beat 94.5 quite a lot, via the internet ( www.thebeat.com ).