Can you work hard while listening to music?


Could we please hear your recommendations for music that wouldn't ruin your productivity or concentration at work?

My general happiness in life is so improved by music that I would like to put a stereo in my office -- but some of my work can be very technical and I don't want to be too absorbed or distracted.

Of course, I am not talking about "elevator music" -- just trying to identify things (not just classical) that are rich and worthy of repeated listening/study, yet perhaps also have a soothing or meditative quality.

Perhaps this is extremely personal and also varies greatly depending on ones profession -- but if something works for you, perhaps you could remind us of what you do to pay for all of your expensive audio gear.

Thank you.
cwlondon
I recommend:
John Handy "Hard Work"
Miles Davis "Workin'"
10 Years After "Workin' on the Road"
Steely Dan "Dirty Work"
4 Tops "Workin' My Way Back to You"
Bachmann Turner Overdrive "Takin' Care of Business"
Grateful Dead "Workingman's Dead"
Johnny Paycheck "Take This Job and Shove It"
Tennesse Ernie Ford "Sixteen Tons"
That's all for now. :^)
Twl, you forgot "I've been working on the railroad"...

Cwlondon, excellent thread! I hope you'll get a ton of responses. One trick that I've found to be effective when working from my home office is to play music of any kind - light jazz is best - at moderate levels in another nearby room (with the door open, of course). Although I have a nice office system and a headphone setup as well, it's much less involving and therefore less distracting to have the source further away from my work area - which, for me, is a desk, and a textbook that I ought to be revising.
Yeah, for me it has to be wallpaper. If it involves me almost at all, it's distracting me too far from what I'm doing.

And these days, I have so many meetings and conference calls that I can't even have it on at all, even though I work mostly from home.
How could I have forgotten "I've been working on the railroad"?! Somebody slap me!
TWL -- You also forgot Devo: Workin' in a Coal Mine.....but I meant this to be a serious thread.

Has anyone heard about research done on the effect of various composers on intellectual development? Or is the baby Mozart stuff just some hoax marketed to striving yuppie parents?

Also, I seem to recall a couple of things that were apparently composed for insommnia? I don't want to fall asleep at my desk, but at least this type of music might not agitate or distract me. Bach's Inventions?

I would also greatly appreciate any suggestions on softer meditative jazz especially performed by the great giants -- I might get sacked if anyone heard Kenny G wafting out of my office....