Music that gives you inspiration

[Jhaelen]

"Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds set the tone for that.

Ah, Nick Cave's songs are a particularly good source of inspiration, since he's usually telling more or less complete stories. E.g. his Murder Ballads.
Henry Rollins works similarly well for me.

Kate Bush has a tendency to choose interesting topics for her songs that can inspire stories (probably because they're sometimes themselves inspired by stories ).

Stan Ridgway's song 'Camouflage' once inspired me to write an adventure.

 

[Razjah]

I like Nox Arcana when I'm prepping adventures, especially if there are undead involved.

When I'm building decks for Magic, I find that club music helps me. I don't know why, I don't generally like the genre, but when I need to make cuts for an EDH deck I'm turning on Pandora and playing some club music.

 

[chrisdojo]

Usually a soundtrack for me. Though often times if I'm listening to something with words, the words fade away and I pay more attention to the music.

 

[Electric Wizard]

My favorite creative music is usually the Queens of the Stone Age, Earth, Boris and Wu-Tang Clan. Most of my players are old-school prog-rock nerds, so I usually end up tolerating ELP, Kansas and Genesis while we actually play uugghh.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Wow. OK.
Everything from The Clancy Brothers, the Chieftans, the WolfeTones, Phil Coulter, and the Seekers, to Queen, to Jerry Goldsmith, to Nox Arcana and Midnight Syndicate. Lately, adding in They Might Be Giants. Oh, and don't forget Eartha Kitt, who in her 80s, was still bloody sexy and had more stage presence than any other performer (in any field) I have ever seen. And Marc McGunn, for something completely odd.