I have this problem too. However, being in an open-plan office, I have to choose the lesser of two evils: monotonous music vs human voices. I find the latter ve

I have this problem too. However, being in an open-plan office, I have to choose the lesser of two evils: monotonous music vs human voices. I find the latter very distracting. I can even go to sleep with music playing but never with people talking around me. Of course given the circumstances, you could probably guess that I pick instrumental music and mainly music without strong 'movements' (I don't know the right term). Eventually, I felt that listening to music on headphones everyday for many hours is going to affect my hearing on the long term and I decided to sacrifice productivity to keep my (better than average) hearing in good condition. I may be rambling a bit but the point I am trying to make is that people are different and also in differing circumstances. So, is possible that you will choose likewise if you were in their place (and were of similar constitution).