I created a Programming Music playlist and started out with very mellow, non-lyrical music from Tycho. From there, I kept following the Related Artists feature (I'm using rdio) and added a number of other artists including Ulrich Schnauss, Isan, and others. It's taken some time, but I'm able to concentrate on my work without being distracted, while the music tends to keep me upbeat and focused.
I switch it up. Sometimes I use my phone's static noise generator (Ambiance on iOS and Android) and set a timer for 50 minutes.
If static noise is causing my mind to go numb, I'll switch to classical...well-known pieces that I've listend to hundreds of times. When I'm not doing anything particularly mindbending, I'll put on alt-rock...Lana Del Ray and Florence + The Machine have been my go-tos recently.
Depends. I have a whole pile of various Pandora stations I've created, that I listen to sometimes. Most of those are rock/metal centric, but there is one focused on gangster rap stuff.
Other times, I like to listen to trance / electronic music / europop stuff, and for that I tend to just find a shoutcast station and tune into that. Same for the times when I'm in the mood for classical music.
Always, however, the Prime Directive remains "ABC" - Anything But Country.
The best offices I've worked in have always had a Spotify account set up, so anyone can remotely connect to the machine running Spotify and put whatever they want on.
It's good because we always get a mix when people get past letting others know how bad their taste in music goes. We've gone from Paramore to Jurassic 5 to John Mayer in the space of an afternoon before, and the mix tends to help everyone relax.
My office I don't have the "quiet" option.
Specially because we don't have money for some equipment, I and my associate sit next to the other, and we are near a very noisy road with lots of trucks and buses.
http://simplynoise.com/
Groove Salad from SomaFM
And often, simply quiet. Quiet is underrated in my opinion.