Top Ten Working Albums

So I’m staring down a long dark tunnel called Thesis Year… shut in a warehouse space with ten other amazingly intelligent and amazingly distracting Interactive Media Masters students. I’ll be spending ten or more hours a day in front of a monitor, with occasional breaks for basketball (we installed a hoop in the scrap room, simultaneously the best and worst idea we’ve ever had). If I can stay focused, these hours will be productive, even revelatory… if not, I can look back with shame on a session of Facebook bullshit and over-deliberated blog posts (no offense, Popten).

Ultimately the difference between the two all comes down to me, my headphones, and my music.

Good working music is a special thing. First off, it’s not necessarily Good Music… and by that I mean it may not be what you’d want to actively listen to, or think about; it might not be good when you’re chilling, partying, sexbombing, driving, etc.

I’d be curious to see what other people use for Working Music, because I suspect my taste is pretty peculiar. I want almost no talking, I want something simultaneously hypnotic and inspiring. A few albums have served as life rafts in the sea of distraction… here they are, in rough reverse order of their buoyancy.

10. Bon Iver, “For Emma, Forever Ago”

Sad and haunting but light as a feather, fantastic in near-silence but too quiet when I need to isolate myself from the outside world.

9. Dirty Vegas, “Dirty Vegas”

This techno album has been a longtime guilty pleasure, it’s one of my favorite for solo driving as well. The ill-advised synthed lyrics, the whole reason it’s so damn listenable in the first place, can also be a bit distracting though.

8. Dire Straits, “Brothers in Arms”

Somehow I feel like this album is the odd man out… classic rock, why? There are a few tracks I skip when I put this on, but Money for Nothing and the title track are some of the best jump-starters I know (full disclosure, I probably only love Brothers in Arms: The Song because of how brilliantly it was used in the end of the West Wing Season 3).

7. Sufjan Stevens, “Come on Feel the Illinoise”

What a great album… I just busted this out after two years, and I wrote eleven pages of great stuff (or at least I thought so) before the record was done.

6. Sigur Ros, “( )”

I think Takk might be a better album in some ways, but ( ) or Untitled or {;} or whatever you want to call it has such a great rhythm to it, it’s easy to get lost in it and forget you’re even working.

5. Afro-Celt Sound System, “Collection”

I have no way of knowing whether this is actually awesome or Discovery Channel Store-cheesy, or both, but it’s a standard go-to for busy work, esp. programming or editing, and I never get tired of it.

4. M83, “Saturdays=Youth”

I listened to this album at the office FIVE TIMES THROUGH before I realized the second to last track was just two alternating tones for eighteen minutes. The rest of the album was that good.

3. Peter Gabriel, “Passion”

I realize that it might be a faux pas to put the Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack on your short list… but judge not, friends, judge not. When you’re immersed in a project you care about, it’s the best.

2. Ulrich Schnauss, “Far Away Trains Passing By”

AMAZING. Something about this album just screams for you to harmonize in your head, throwing in melody lines and getting wrapped up in your own creations… there’s something inherently creative to it (for me at least) that just spirals into other ideas.

1. The Books, “Thought for Food”

Who would have thought that this cracked out banjo-and-experimental-soundscape abomination would become my #1 work album? I don’t even think I LIKED it when I first heard it. But somehow it takes me out of my assumptions, and without distractions it says something that MOST of my work albums don’t: “Stay off your autopilot, Jamie”. That has proven useful advice more times than I can count.

So there we go. By my nature, I often enjoy working in silence, probably because the conversations that go on in my head are noise enough. But when working in silence is not an option (as it so often isn’t) or when I need a change of pace to get me motivated, these ten albums have come to the rescue.