I've had an M1 for many months as a working Mac. I never hear the fan. It never seems to come on. I am mostly using Apple Mail, Safari (processor hog for some badly coded web sites), Busy Cal, Busy Contacts, Apple News, and music ALAC via Apple Music. Occasionally Piximator Pro. A bunch of small background crap like Healthier, Brightness Slider, Copied, etc.
Note that when you first get it, Spotlight will run for many, many days. The fan might come on. Although, if you are fresh and not moving from Mac to Mac, this might not happen or just a day or so. TimeMachine will also come on and run like mad too long as it clears out stuff. No user control over that. This is Apple being a dick.
The M1 will for sure go to my AV system as a music server when I replace it. The M series is probably going to just get better and better but for music, which is nothing for even old Mac CPUs from the 1990s, none of that matters at all.
The only thing missing from Macs now is a CD drive. I still have about 4 CDs I need to burn on an older Mac and move over to Apple Music collection I have. I am too cheap to buy a portable drive. Plus, I don't want more stuff on my desk…
Note: Unless you are doing HD video editing, just get the lower RAM model. The way the chip works is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from older Macs and Intel. So you do not need piles of RAM.