We are in the middle of a really challenging time right now. The holidays are stressful, Prince died, Jennifer Lawrence turned out to be a huge jerk, and the president-elect is the physical manifestation of Satan. However, in the midst of all this, I bring a little bit of good news. It's snazzy, it's hopeful, and it's something you might be able to use. It's music for cats.

Playing music for animals isn't a new thing. The practice of snake charming goes back hundreds of years. However, for the vast majority of us without that weirdly specific skill set, it seemed like animals had little to no interest in listening to music. All the data that we had amassed from experiments pretty much confirmed that animals didn't care one way or another about the Jackson Five.

However, as it turns out, the situation is not that animals don't care about music, it's that they don't care about human music. Composer and international treasure David Teie was the one who really kicked the whole 'music-for-animals' thing off. He joined up with the band 'Black Prairie and together they created a song for wolves. Assuming that you haven't heard wolf music before, it's very similar to human music. It sounds like music that a rich guy who lives in a van and poses as homeless would listen to. The music was played for the wolves at the Wolf Haven in Wisconsin. They filmed the whole ordeal. while it starts out looking like a bunch of idiots singing at an enclosure. Then, in a very short amount of time, the wolves gathered in front of them and stop what they are doing to listen and to watch.

David Teie also worked with a man named Chuck Snowden to create music for monkeys. Together they composed really terrible song. Though we are closer related to monkeys than wolves, monkey music is basically one loud, high pitched screech. However, it was a big hit with the tamarins they played it for. Snowden was quoted by the WNYC as calling the music "godawful' and claiming that in spite of how it sounds to him "the tamarinds dig it"

While nobody in their right mind would dare to argue that all of the above isn't super neat, most of us do not have a tamarin or wolf on hand. Which brings us to cats. On the 14th of October, 2016, David Teie released his album music for cats. The songs are less humanoid than wolf music, but unlike the music for the monkeys, are still pretty easily identifiable as music. It features a lot of whirrs, chirps, and purrs.

While cats aren't known for their visceral joyful reactions, my cat seemed to perk up when I played them for her. What's more is that some of the songs seemed to have a much more soothing effect, while others seemed to rile her up. Teie says that different cats have different songs that they prefer, different musical tastes. He says that he can generally tell if cats really like a particular song because they will rub up against the speakers, pay close attention, or even start to purr.

Right now, I feel a bit like sam telling Frodo that there is still good left in the world as a volcano explodes around them and blood spurts from the stump where his finger used to be. There's so much bad going on right now, it's hard to believe that our entire species is anything more than a pile of wet garbage. But we did this. We made music for animals. Music that we can play for our pets. We did something, even if it is a small something, not for political or monetary purposes, but just because it makes the world a little bit better.

The album is available for purchase on amazon, iTunes, and for free on youtube.