Many artists have commented that music is a huge part of their lives. I recently flipped through a collection of artwork by Keith Parkinson called Knightsbridge (an excellent book, full of really cool art and amusing commentary by a commercial artist.) At the end, he has a Q&A in which he is asked if he listens to music while he works; he does, and his taste is quite varied. It runs from Red Hot Chili Peppers to Metallica, to classic and books on tape. Quite a variety.
Several people have asked me what I listen to while I work. It's hard to say; I tailor my playlist to the task at hand. When I'm doing "work work", I generally prefer something upbeat to keep me going. Dance and 80's work well for this. When I'm working on a script or a story, one of the first things I do is sit down and decide on a playlist. Music has a tremendous effect on me and holds a lot of power to make me feel one way or the other.
For example: if I listen to Orbital - Halcyon+on+on, I'll feel like everything is right with the world. If I put on The Boomtang Boys - Pictures, I'll feel like I'm in high school again. If I put on Talking Heads - (Nothing But) Flowers, I'll feel like it's time to go to work (thank you Kevin Smith.)
With that in mind, my taste in music is extremely varied. I could say "I like everything but rap and country," but that's the half-assed generic way of saying "I am agreeable to most any musical selection that does not originate in the American southwest or the contemporary American urban landscape." But again, my musical selection varies depending on what I'm going to do.
When I'm working on a noir story, I listen to predominantly Jazz. I like anything that has a sax and a piano, I don't care who plays it. Yoko Kanno did some great jazz for the animes "Macross Plus" and "Cowboy Bebop."
When I'm working on an action story, I like to have battle music from video games; the Final Fantasy series works well (specifically, FFVII: Advent Children.) Paul Oakenfold and the animes "Fullmetal Alchemist," "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" and "Otogizoushi" all have excellent battle music.
For my current project, Muse, I have quite an interesting selection. Because the story has an undercurrent of "East meets west" and "Japanese punk rock meets Seattle Grunge", I have both grunge and J-punk. Malfunkshun, Pearl Jam, 7 Year Bitch, Hi-Standard, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, The SS, The Stalin and Soundgarden. For variety, I like to throw a little Shoegazer in too, mostly The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine (funny, I seem to have a thing for picking up trends about 20 years too late...oh well.) Yeah, I did my homework.
Bottom line: don't take what I listen to as "inspirational music" to be the definitive soundtrack of inspiration. While I may find A Flock of Seagulls - Space Age Love Story to be inspirational, you may not. You may think "shit dude, what's with the 80's kick? Didn't Mike Score's hair go out of style like 20 years ago?" While I could counter with "at least A Flock of Seagulls has garnered critical acclaim in the last twenty years. How many of your teeny-bopper-wanna-be-rock-star bands will still be talked about twenty years from now?" that would be missing the point entirely.
The point is this: find the music that inspires you and play it as often as you need to. If Gwar gets your creative juices going, then go find some Gwar albums (just remember that you have neighbors when you play it and they probably know the landlord's phone number.) Don't let anyone tell you that something is the best music out there for inspiration. As much as I'm going to get blasted for this, not all of us find The Beatles to be inspiring. And on that note, bring on the flames.
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