Creative Music Time

How do you deal with your environment when working on something creative? I'm one of those people that finds it super hard to listen to music when working creatively. I'm not entirely sure why, but it completely distracts me unless the tone of the music is perfect for the type of thing I am creating. I.e I could paint something very naturalisitc with a bunch of pop music going off in the background, but if i want to get big broad strokes, I'd probably pick something rather upbeat and fast, to get me moving looser and quicker.

What do you find works best for you? Have you tried different genres depending on what you are working on?

Most of the time I prefer headphones on with no music, or headphones around my neck with some music playing quietly (but obviously that's not fit for work), but I recently just found this great Disney playlist on youtube, however corny, I somehow find I switch off too whilst animating, it works pretty well for some parts of the process, but I still think that is genre related.

Also switching tracks can be enough to take you out THE "zone", so look up playlists or long mixes on youtube, soundcloud etc, they are great, because you can pretty much forget about them playing, and hideaway your browser so you can concentrate.

I've just realised this post is more about getting and staying in the zone, then my original idea of just what music do you listen to, if any.

But maybe for you, it's a massive source of inspiration, I would love to hear your thoughts :)