There is foreground music and there is background music. I mostly prefer foreground music -- it has something to say, and if it's any good, you will be paying attention. But background music has its times. The most common is when you're in an environment that has intermittent attention-grabbing noise. When the schoolbus comes, there's a raft of various age kids talking as they walk home past my windows. Conversation is attention-grabbing. Old Motown records that I've heard 100 times aren't. Putting them on keeps the kids from distracting me. So if you live in an environment with attention-grabbing noise, background music is a good thing while reading. -- "In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal." -- author unknown