When I was in high school, my math teacher would play Mozart during tests, claiming it would help us. It would drive me crazy, and I doubt that my grades improved as a result of the distraction.
For what it's worth, I have a BMus in Piano Performance. I love music... but never as "background noise"!
Me: Single source only, absolutely can't listen to music while trying to code or read. I have used https://mynoise.net/ and the Android app to drown out environmental noise when I'm working around others. I'm very easily distracted by noise, especially things like speakerphone conferences. Music to me is a single focus thing, I can't do anything else and have to focus only on the music.
Her: can hold a conversation with me while listening to a podcast and simultaneously playing a phone game. Music is very much something that happens while she is busy doing other stuff, even when it's her favourite songs and she's rocking out singing along.
It was a revelation to her when we discussed this. She was completely unaware that to me, trying to hold a conversation if I was already listening to music was almost painful. She's adjusted her expectations and knows that if my good headphones are on, it's my music time. We both love music so much, it's an integral part of our gen-x upbringing, yet our different attention problems lead us to consume it in very different ways.
(and, yes, she's awesome. I'm amazed daily by her and count myself incredibly lucky to find someone as kind, understanding, funny, loving, sexy and brilliant as her)
sorry if that's TMI.