Generally power metal here - Nightwish, Blind Guardian, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Angra, Edguy, HammerFall, Manowar, Kamelot, older Sonata Arctica, Demons & Wizards

Generally power metal here - Nightwish, Blind Guardian, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Angra, Edguy, HammerFall, Manowar, Kamelot, older Sonata Arctica, Demons & Wizards, etc. Sometimes I'll venture into some female-fronted metal bands like Within Temptation or Delain too. Regular heavy metal also is always fine - Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, some Dio. Dream Theater is also quite a great progressive metal band, as well as their side project Liquid Tension Experiment. Some solo guitarists make some great stuff - one of my personal favorites is Kiko Loureiro (Angra, Megadeth). As far as non-metal artists I'll listen to while coding, one of my favorites is Gary Moore - he was an extraordinarily prolific artist, one of the most genre spanning more mainstream artists I listen to. I also like listening to Kate Bush as well. I've listened to music of a lot of different genres too outside those whose artists I have listed - this might not work for everyone though. If I'm listening to something I like, I'm happy and generally avoid being distracted.