I'm looking for music to play during game sessions, something that would accomodate different moods, and I'm looking for you suggestions. Here are different high level atmosphere I'm trying to cover:
- Meetings (with Johnson for instance. I'm looking for both neutral (warehouse) and specific environments (bar))
- Elevator (the classic )
- Pre-run (legwork, detective work, run preparation, etc)
- In between runs (bars, doing B&R, casual, etc)
- In runs (combat, vehicule chase, matrix infiltration, overwhelming odds, escaping pursuit, etc)
- Any suggestions ??

The sound tracks from the two serries of Ghost in the Shell give a nice techno feel for a lot of stuff.good for clubs and corp settings.
other J-pop for malls and stuff
I'm also a fan of more modern Celtic stuff like Clannad. for more intellectual areas.

For your elevator music - The Girl From Ipanema is a classic.
Have a listen

One of my favorite Shadowrun soundtrack artists is Ayria. She has just the right attitude to make you feel like you're living on the futuristic, nihilistic edge of things.

Certain tracks by Collide are pretty good for downtime, being mostly downbeat, but still futuristic.

Clubbed to Death by Rob Dougan can be played pretty much on a contiuous loop, but don't forget Part II! It's the much overlooked second movement, and is laden with a lot more feeling IMO. Sort of a weird thing to say about an instrumental track, but there it is.

I'd be interested to hear how you plan to make different tracks work though. IMHO, it would be a distraction, it could take 10 minutes to calm everyone down after turning on the elevator music. It's hard enough to keep the run itself from degenerating into joke and horseplay most of the time, actually selecting a silly track could derail you in a second. The way I see it, the best way to do things is to keep one set of tracks playing in the background to set the overall mood. Even switching to a hard driving tune during combat would take peoples' minds off of their imagination and bring them back into the real world. When the GM clicks his ipod and changes the track, everyone remembers that they're not Shadowrunners, they're people sitting around a table, using music to try and make themselves feel like badasses. Unless you're a master of sucking people into the atmosphere, or have a very focused set of players, you run the risk of breaking the mood any time you monkey with the music in a purposeful fashion.

I own a vast collection of movie soundtracks. Since most of that stuff is instrumental, theres something in there for pretty much any situation you and your group will ever encounter, so official soundtracks are always a pretty good investment!

We're playing in a 2 players + the master and very accented towards role-playing (we can go for several sessions in a row without throwing dice). We also have a laptop with a plugged monitor to show world maps, NPC pictures, and the likes (this way, the GM doesn't show his stuff and show us only what we need). The laptop is also used for the music.

We've been using this setup for years and it works like a charm. Of course, the GM brings his laptop, so he's familiarized with his explorer style to minimize searches.