Spotify For Your Pets, Anyone?

Aimed by the Swedish audio streaming site for their subscribers who felt guilty leaving their pets alone at home, does a Spotify playlist and podcast list for your pets actually offer positive benefits for your pets?

By: Ringo Bones

The Swedish audio streaming site has pitched the scheme specifically for those who felt guilty leaving their pet(s) alone at home Spotify is now making curated playlists specifically tailored for your pets to enjoy. Often referred to as “Spotify For Pets”, it’s been around for over two weeks now and many subscribers swear by it given that the app’s algorithm generates a music playlist that is more or less “liked” by their pets.  But for pet owners with a semblance of knowledge on how the science behind their pet’s auditory system works compared to theirs, are the “Spotify Pet Playlists and tailored podcasts are really backed by science that they offer positive benefits to your pets, never mind if they can even hear them at all given the physiological differences between the human auditory system and your pet’s?

Well, there was a study published by Australian researchers a few years ago that dog breeds used for sheepherding prefer to listen to acoustic guitar based campfire music and even seem to feel relaxed while listening to such repertoire. But what about the more exotic pets mentioned in Spotify’s pet playlists, like iguanas and probably snakes whose auditory system are more sensitive in the low frequency or bass region compared to humans? Would such pets prefer electronic dance music with a surfeit of bass – maybe Meghan Trainor’s All About the Bass perhaps?

Rough Trade Records: Selling More Records Than Ever?

The legendary record label and independent record shop says it has sold more records than ever in the second decade of the 21^st Century, sign that the vinyl LP revival is alive and well?

By: Ringo Bones

When the BBC ran this story a few days ago, I thought that it was part of their “This Week In History” series and they were featuring a mid 1990s vinyl LP revival news story that features the legendary Rough Trade record label. Stranger still, it was a current report on the state of the vinyl LP revival in the second decade of the 21^st Century. But what makes Rough Trade records so special?

Rough Trade records occupies a special place in the hearts of everyone who’s into hard-to-find alternative rock and punk rock albums, or just about any album censored by the Reagan Administration that won’t be displayed at your local K-Mart during the 1980s. Formed in 1978 by Geof Travis, it serves as a launching point of independent rock bands that were later signed into a major label. But during the 1990s, Rough Trade was often seen as the “British equivalent” of the American Go-Kart record label that was famous for the NYC based punk rock band Lunachicks.

I don’t know how the under 30s perceive Rough Trade records in its current form but for anyone who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, the Rough Trade record label will forever be associated with Scrawl, Young Marble Giants, Miracle Legion and Mazzy Star. Though newer bands – as in post 9/11 era bands – like Alabama Shakes, Arcade Fire and British Sea Power are also signed with Rough Trade records. And to audiophiles pushing 50, Rough Trade records was better known during the 1980s for their “rough-sounding” CDs because virtually all bands in this era signed to Rough Trade were submitting their digital master tapes on the early JVC DAS-90 digital recording system.