More and more these days it seems I rely on background music to get me through the day. Usually stuff with minimal lyrics. Things like ambient/downtempo beats from soma.fm or techno from ah.fm if I'm feeling a little from upbeat. Occasionally I will put on the the lo-fi beats playlist on Spotify. If I'm trying to read something its usually the piano stuff that keeps me focused.

The minimal lyrics part is important because lyrics force my brain to actually listen and try to understand and process the words which is usually not what I want to be doing when I'm trying to read a long blog post or a book or whatever. This is why hip-hop with lyrics is not background music for me as I will try to process the lyrics. No Lupe Fiasco while I'm trying to read this book, thanks.

Music like this is not what I would call active listening, none of it sticks to my brain and is memorable. I can't for example give you a favourite ambient/downtempo track from all the tracks I've listened to or any of the techno or piano etc. Its all just sort of background audio stimuli which I need because silence is worse and ambient city noise isn't really consistent enough for me (also not as pleasant if I am being honest).

So that's it about these kinds of music: It's Better Than Silence. Hm, that is actually a good name for a playlist that has this kind of background music in it 🤔.