It would have been a good article to help champion the cause of "don't tell me I have to use headphones to work here", if not for the "music is distracting" point IMHO.
Music is sometimes orienting. A decent steady BPM can keep you going through even boring slogs without getting distracted sometimes.
That all being said, having to listen to music, having to decide on what to listen to, and not being able to achieve quiet when you don't want music, that's a problem.
It's wrong to say you HAVE to listen to music. It's great to listen to when you want to, but having to listen to it all day because you can't stand the noise can be rather oppressive.
So, as someone who was taught from a young age that only one medium at one time was allowed, open plan offices are a pain in the tits for me.
I used to sit next to a bloke who play wonderful music, but it never stopped. Trying to debug anything complex was impossible.
Ultimately the only real way I could get round it was to use these: http://www.koss.com/en/products/headphones/full_size_headpho... This blocked out most of the noise.
To get over the last bit of detail I used a white noise generator: http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/rainNoiseGenerator.php (worth the support fee)
Now, this is still noise, but its constant and easily ignored.