A while back I setup a Pandora station with just crappy dance-pop stuff. It was all up beat and I didn't really know any of it well enough to sing along so it worked well when my brain didn't need to fire on all cylinders. Unfortunately, it was a short-lived thing because eventually I learned the words and now the station doesn't work anymore.
Lately I've been listening to movie sound tracks like the music from Brave, Pirates of the Caribbean, and soundtracks like that. It also happens to help with what I'm working on because the style fits.
Sometimes it is distracting in that it makes me want to go work on Mythruna's music.
Along those lines, there's a genre of music that sounds like movie/game soundtracks but was never for any movie or game. Relevant artists here are folks like Jo Blankenburg, Future World Music, James Dooley.
Also on Pandora, I have a blues station... but mostly that's because I started taking guitar lessons again recently and it helps build up my brain's catalog of blues riffs if I listen to it in the background.
Most of my hardcore work lately, I don't listen to music at all.