Trunk Music

Over at Rolling Stone, the online version of the mag lists their favorite 'crime' songs.

It's a painfully obvious list, and it seems most are on there because they have some iteration of the word 'crime' in the title. Some blatant omissions: Cash's "I Got Stripes," The Stones' "Heartbreaker (Doo Doo Doo Doo)," Ice-T's "Cop Killer" and a few others that aren't immediately popping into my head (I'd have to scroll through the Stones, Clash and Cash libraries to find better examples, and that's not happening now). Click on the link to see the full list.

More importantly, this post got me to thinking about what music is most conducive to writing. While I listen to a lot of different genres of music (and find myself listening to music most of the time), it's a little bit trickier when I need to "split my brain" and focus on more than just the music, like when I'm reading or writing. Usually for reading on the train, I usually just have the music at a lower volume, allowing me to focus on the words on the page. Writing is a bit different and I find that instrumentals work best. Jazz, particularly Mingus and Charlie Parker really get my hands typing, especially with SILENT CITY.

What do you listen to while writing?

Three points for those that get the crime fiction reference in the post headline.