Is there anything you put on just for background music?
 

Yes, the idea is abhorrent to the serious music fan, but don't you have anything you play as background while you clean the flat or fold the laundry? (I'm assuming some of us don't live in a messy bedroom in the basement of our parents' house in the suburbs.)

Me, I like greatest hits packages of people I'm very familiar with. I have both of Dylan's early greatest hits packages (the blue covers, one's a double LP), and these are great to have on for mindless entertainment. Same with the Hot Rocks package from the Stones.

Yours?

greatest hits are good for chores and stuff. I ussually put on ethereal/odd instrumentals a la Tristeza, or pele, or Tortoise etc.

I usually go with tuff old surf tunes, really heavy fuzzed out guitars with fun drum breaks.

Something loud, to cover the noise of this fucking hoover, like Confusion is Sex, or any Dino Jr album. But my neighbours don't like this kind of music. so I let my girlfriend do the work. She listens to (fucking boring) french music...

i often like falling asleep to eno's ambient 1 and music airports, also aphex's ambient volume 2, so yeah, lost of ambient electronic stuff.

Any electonic stuff without Lyrics, assorted drumn'bass albums, 'trip hop' and turntabalism, Nightmares on Wax, Ralph Myerz and The Jack Herren Band, stuff like that

I put on the radio, mostly.

I often put early Swans when I clean my room.

Animal collective, Wooden wand, or anything that is relaxing or acoustic for cleaning my room and also for baking my room :)
Though my room never gets clean

I'm not in the category of finding 'background music' abhorrent - there's loads of stuff I'll stick on that you can drift in and out of while reading (or somesuch). Bach or Mozart very frequently get put on while I'm doing other things. I like things that operate on both levels - someone like Schoenberg you can listen to with full intensity or just let it float about in the background. It gets very difficult to live my day-to-day life if I'm constantly paying attention to the sounds around me, so I need to be able to switch off sonic-consciousness.

chilled out smashing pumpkins songs are great for background music!

Ex Models.

You are ridiculous.

Well, that completely depends on my mood. possibly something heavy, sludgy and droney, some electronica or something thoroughly boring shit such as Mogwai or Portishead.

tortoise, stars of the lid, windy & carl, labradford, dirty three, dj shadow...that sorta stuff

Haha, Good Shoes album is the ultimate sing along album for when clearing my room.

I usually put on Zen Arcade for chores. Jazz for just chillin'.

spiritualized... the new one... its excellent for chilling out.
space men 3
windy and carl
kraftwerk
lightning bolt, for the house clean up
boredoms
anything really.......

oh, ive a greatest hits of the 60s 8 cd box set thingy which is cool if you are entertaining the parents/parents in law....

Yes, greatest hits and best-ofs are good for background music. The Very Best Of The Smiths, the Ramones Anthology, Daydream Nation, the Jesus & Mary Chain's 21 Singles, and playlists of my favourite songs are always good.

I love putting on Kind of Blue, Eno's Ambient 4, and Talk Talk's last two albums if I'm in the mood to just lie in my bed and space out.