What I'm wondering is, what is it about music WITH lyrics, which interferes with coding? ... is it the language processing side of the brain being overloaded or just distracted from the task at hand ( which would be translation...right? ) i.e. coding == actively translating tasks and concepts into a machine's language.
In general I feel like music works better if I know it well.
I like to listen to more distracting music though when doing a "boring" task that does not require that much brain processing itself.
My coworker watches tv shows on his second monitor and listens to murder-mystery podcasts all day since his job mostly entails cranking out web banners and print ads of various sizes. He could pretty much do it with his eyes closed, as he’s been doing it for so long. Not to mention he’s just damn good at his job.
I guess it all depends on how much of your personal processor you can spare for your current task.