My search for the perfect work soundtrack

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Do you listen to music while working? I would like to, because I like music, and like to think of myself as a cultural enthusiast, but also because I’m sitting in front of my laptop in an empty kitchen and I worry that the incipient silence will encourage the rodent community I suspect are loitering beneath my floorboards to come and say hello.

Right now, I’m listing to Painless by Nilüfer Yanya, because Pitchfork says that her “sophisticated spin on heartbreak music” puts her at number 56 of “the best 100 albums of the 2020s so far”, and because the songs are just unfamiliar enough I can’t sing along. But, already I can feel my fingers twitching towards Spotify because although it is “mesmeric”, it’s also a bit jangly and I’m in danger of becoming distracted.

Listening to music while working is generally considered a good thing. I’m just very bad at it. Numerous studies have been undertaken that found that music in the workplace can increase mood, productivity and performance, whether that work is performing tedious menial repetitive tasks in a factory, or a comprehension test. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) aired its first edition of Music While You Work on 23 June 1940, in the midst of the war effort; it ran until 1967. Its up-tempo soundtrack was designed as a 30-minute vibe, loud enough to be heard on the factory floor but not too racy — the corporation forbade the playing of any rumbas. According to letters sent to the broadcaster, its impact was “incalculable”, with many factory owners estimating that productivity increased by up to 15 per cent.

I’m listening to one of its earliest recordings right now via footage dug up on YouTube, and it does indeed have an upbeat, jazzy bombast with occasional flavours of marching band. Just the kind of pep those factory “munitionettes” would have needed to keep the shells stuffed with ammo. But it’s a bit too robust and patriotic for 2024: and so I’ve moved on to Max Richter, the patron saint of ambient somnambulism, whose facility for extemporising on a handful of chords has accompanied dozens of soundtracks. The Blue Notebooks, conceived initially as a protest against the war in Iraq in 2003, has since been used to convey alien encounters (Arrival), mental breakdown (Shutter Island) and male friendship (The Leftovers). Richter is one of the most popular contemporary composers, masterful in his ability to elide mental focus and mood, but, for the purposes of writing this, it’s a bit of a downer, so I’m skipping once again to my brother’s top work-song recommendations, the “looped and repetitive” electronica of things like Bonobo, Aphex Twin or late Radiohead.

In our office, there seems to be a generational divide between those who work in silence and those who must be plugged into their headphones

Nah. Not happening. I can’t find my soundtrack: much as I want to, nothing quite hits the mark. I’ve tried listening to classical, because I mistakenly thought it would be calming and restful, and most of it was so syncopated and unhinged it felt like listening to a panic attack. “Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken,” wrote Ludwig van Beethoven of his contribution to the creative process. But listening to any of his symphonies, I find, feels like taking a tab of acid. Not helpful.

Neither do Bach’s celebrated cello concertos, universally considered to be the ultimate in ambient bliss, do it for me. It all feels a bit performative, as though I’m trying to play a role in someone else’s life: richer, more culturally profound and inhabited by people like Cate Blanchett and Bill Nighy. And I’m a George Michael kind of girl.

Of course, one’s choice of soundtrack all depends on whether your sounds are designed to be enjoyed by all simultaneously, or squirrelled into headphones and enjoyed in your own aural hideaway. Productivity is said to be increased by musical accompaniment, but what if your cohort insists on listening to Whitesnake? Or Abba? I still get PTSD symptoms on hearing the first few bars of David Gray’s studio album White Ladder because it played on a loop in the restaurant in which I waitressed at the back end of the 20th century. Play me the first notes of “Babylon” and I’ll try to serve you a grass-reared steak, medium rare, with a side of chunky chips.

In our office, as with many, there seems to be a generational divide between those who like to work in silence and those who must be plugged into their headphones. For the purposes of the group dynamic I’m not a huge fan of the “locked-in syndrome” that seems to have possessed Gen Z workers to block out all extra-sensory stimulation. I can’t understand why they wouldn’t want to hear my fascinating witterings, which I offer frequently and freely. Nevertheless, they like to beetle away while tuned into Steve Lacy’s “Atomic Vomit” or “Take Me Home” by PinkPantheress. And who am I to argue?

Sorry for the brief interlude . . . Just had to accompany Miley Cyrus in the chorus of “Used to be Young”, the best track, I would argue, on her seminal 2023 album 2023 album Endless Summer Vacation.

And here we are, at the column’s end. And Fleetwood Mac has popped up on the Spotify playlist (a compilation of “Work Music” based on my own listening preferences. A last resort solution). Is there ever a circumstance in which the answer isn’t Stevie Nicks?

This week’s contribution was brought to you by a host of artists: but I still haven’t found my optimum soundtrack. Help me knuckle down. I don’t want to sit in silence: so please send me your best suggestions . . . 

Email Jo at [email protected]

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