8 Albums Developers Love Programming To
As much as we all love being in an office full of friendly people, there’s time where you just need to focus and get coding. So, out come the headphones and you load up Spotify — but what playlist do you choose?
🎵 A popular film score? Heavy-metal? A relaxation playlist? Maybe some Korean pop?
In search of answers, we reached out to our Twitter followers and have compiled the most popular responses below.
TRON: Legacy Original Soundtrack
Daft Punk
This choice came up several times — and even our own Peter and Chris suggested it independently before we asked anyone else. This is a true community favorite.
Whereas the soundtrack for the original 1982 film had a strong synthpop and partially 80s rock vibe, Daft Punk introduced orchestral elements alongside an electronic and digital sound to match the slick feel of the 2010 sequel.
“The Social Network” Soundtrack
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
This Academy Award winning film saw a handful of Twitter replies speaking highly of its musical score.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross created the film’s tension with bass and electronics. The first track from the album, Hand Covers Bruise reminds me of being stuck in the middle of a busy office. Think of it as background noise but without the distractions.
OK Computer, Kid A or In Rainbows
Radiohead
The English rock band is very popular with developers. No-one seemed to be able to pick one album with each having determined advocates. The top three were OK Computer, Kid A, and In Rainbows.
As If To Nothing
Craig Armstrong
Craig Armstrong’s As If To Nothing album was suggested, and after listening to the album whilst researching I can see why — the album has a great mixture of instrumental and vocal tracks featuring both male and female singers.
One of the tracks (Waltz) has a direct relevance to programming as it’s a lush instrumental piece with a robotic-sounding woman reading out raw HTML and HTTP headers as if she were a screen reader.
The Race For Space
Public Service Broadcasting
The Race For Space album features sound samples from the British Film Institute, alternative music and electronic. The sound samples retell the stories of historical moments. I have had the album on repeat recently and it has become a personal favourite.
Hackers Original Soundtrack
The soundtrack from the 1995 motion picture Hackers had numerous votes. Bands like The Prodigy and Leftfield dominate the album, these 90s classic electronic songs fit perfectly with the film’s style and after listening to the album I can see how it helps create a faster working pace.
These are all excellent choices — personally I would have gone for a bit of Spice Girls but whatever, each to their own.
It’s quite interesting to see how many programmers have movie soundtracks as their motivational music playlists.
I would like to say a big thank you to all those who contributed to this post, your recommendations were appreciated.
Edit- Thank you to Geoffrey Wiseman for creating a playlist of the songs featured in this post.
What do you listen to? Anything we mentioned or maybe something different? Reach out and tweet me: @zaecooperpress or email me directly: zae@cooperpress.com.
