On some of my playthroughs of skyrim I would ignore the whole main story, to the point of not picking up the dragonstone in that first dungeon and just explore the world and get in various shenanigans. Doing it that way also makes the dragons not ever spawn.
If we're talking soundtracks, my vote goes to Morrowind, which I swear they keep reusing in the other Elder Scrolls games in bits and pieces.

I always play Bethesda's games vanilla the first time or two. After that it's modding time. Mostly cosmetic, unofficial patches, and fixing things that bugged me in vanilla.