Spotify has a feature that lets you create a playlist dedicated to your pet and naturally, we wanted to give it a go.
According to a survey conducted by Spotify, eight out of ten pet owners believe that their animal companions like music. On top of that, 71% have played music for their pets – that now includes this writer.
How to make your own Spotify pet playlist
To make a start on creating a dedicated playlist for your furry, feathered or scaly friends, head over to spotify.com/pets on a web browser or tap open.spotify.com/site/pets to open the relevant page on the Spotify app if you’re reading this on a phone.
Next, you’ll have to input a few details about your music-loving pet.
- Pick your pet | You can choose from a dog, cat, iguana, hamster, or bird.
- Tell Spotify more about your pet | Choose from several personality traits, from relaxed vs energetic to shy vs friendly, to help Spotify work out the perfect playlist vibe.
- Add a name and photo | Personalize your pet playlist with your animal companion’s photo and name, which will become the playlist’s cover.
- Listen and share | Once the playlist is set up, grab your pet and get listening. You can also share your pet’s playlist with the generated share card (like those for Spotify Wrapped) and compare with your friends and other music-loving pet owners using #SpotifyPets.
To see the process in action, check out the video below.
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I tried it on my cat
To see if Spotify’s pet playlist had any effect at all, I decided to try it out on my cat, Rusty, who will often sit in the same room as me while I’m working.
When filling in his personality details, I skewed towards ‘relaxed’ over ‘energetic’ as he likes a snooze as he’s getting on a bit now.
For ‘friendly’ vs ‘shy’ I left the slider in the middle as he’s friendly with people he knows (if he’s in the right mood, he can be a little drama queen) but will run and hide if any strangers are around.
And for ‘curious’ vs ‘apathetic’ I leaned slightly towards curious as he will often come to poke his head in any grocery bags and will immediately investigate an empty cardboard box that’s been left lying around.
After filling in the details, Spotify then created a playlist of 21 tracks. 17 of which were ones from my listening history – or were similar recommendations – while the remaining four were songs I hadn’t come across before.
The first two were Je Plane by Charmaine D’Avis and Cognizant by Lori Dulac. Both were beautifully chilled instrumental piano tracks, perfect for a cat (or indeed a human) that likes to snooze.
Up next was Carol of the Cats by iAmMoshow, a cat-themed rap version of Carol of the Bells. Not for me thanks.
And the fourth was The Cat Came Back by The Laurie Berkner Band, a bluesy track with some great bass guitar to bop along to. This is the type of song I imagine plays in a cat’s head when they’re out on patrol.
As for the music from my own listening history – I tend to listen to film, TV and video game soundtracks – there were a few tracks from the scores from Red Dead Redemption II, The Last of Us and the Star Wars series, Andor, among others.
While the playlist was certainly agreeable listening for me, the ultimate test here is to see whether it caught Rusty’s attention.
The short answer is no.
He’s never been noticeably bothered one way or another by music before and unsurprisingly, that remained the case here too as he didn’t stir from his nap.
