Who said that you should listen to music without being distracted by anything?
Of course, you can listen to music under any circumstances.
So next time you can play some modern music in the background while you wash the dishes or read.
Understand styles
Music of the XX and XXI centuries is called only that way, without designating the era. The point is not that there are no styles in music now, but that there are so many of them that it is impossible to choose one thing that would become the name of the era.
Everything is allowed! However, to understand this salad, you need to know literally 3-5 modern musical directions.
Let’s remember them.
Academic minimalism. The piano sounds (less often – a string ensemble or orchestra), the composer works with a repetitive pattern, and this work is more conceptual than dance (this is how the academic aesthetics manifests itself)
Neo-baroque and neoclassicism. This style uses the techniques and forms of music of bygone eras. Stravinsky belongs to neoclassicism, and Schnittke wrote neo-baroque. Sometimes Ludovic Enaudi is also called a neoclassicist, but this is in vain: in fact, he writes in the style of classical crossover – a synthesis of pop, academic and electronic music.
Musical postmodernism and eclecticism. This is the kind of music that is difficult to listen to because it is full of harmonic complexities. In all respects, this music resembles the avant-garde of the 20th century, which became its prototype.