Technologies

Last Christmas Stresses Your Pets, and So Do These Other Holiday Tunes

Talk about pet peeves. Science says these turbo-charged holiday jams drive your pets up the tree.

Do you think Spotify releases Wrapped for listeners in early December so that Christmas music doesn’t inadvertently make its way into your annual roundup? At this point, Christmas tunes are in full swing and practically inescapable, no matter where you go. And they don’t just get annoying to you — your pets are sick of them, too. According to a report from music event ticket sales platform Fanatix, popular, high-tempo music bops are stressing your pets out.

Fanatix asked music experts to analyze 90 popular Christmas songs to discover which tunes are putting your pets on edge and offer up some less stressful alternatives. Fanatix used information from both the BBC and Natural Library of Medicine, which concluded that slow-tempo songs with little to no percussive elements are best for your pets. With this in mind, Fanatix dug into Spotify’s Christmas Hits playlist and went to work.

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The most popular Christmas tune on the music streaming list is Wham’s Last Christmas, which takes the cake as the most nerve-racking song for pets, with a beats per minute (BPM) of 206. High-tempo songs are more likely to cause irritation to your critters.

Here’s the full list of popular, yet distressing, Christmas songs for your pets. And don’t worry, Mariah Carey is nowhere to be found on it, so carry on.

The Most Stressful Christmas Songs for Pets

	Title	Artist	Tempo / BPM
1	Last Christmas	Wham!	206
2	Merry Christmas Everyone	Shakin’ Stevens	203
2	Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas)	The Andrews Sisters	203
3	It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year	Andy Williams	202
4	Santa Tell Me	Ariana Grande	192
5	Christmas Eve / Sarajevo 12/24 — Instrumental	Trans-Siberian Orchestra	186
6	Please Come Home for Christmas — 2013 Remaster	Eagles	183
7	Driving Home for Christmas	Chris Rea	180
8	What Christmas Means to Me (feat. Stevie Wonder)	John Legend, Stevie Wonder	170
8	Holiday Road — Spotify Singles Holiday	Kesha	170
9	We Wish You the Merriest	Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Fred Waring	169
10	Where Are You Christmas?	Faith Hill	168

If your rotating holiday playlist has more than a couple of the songs from the list above on it, Fanatix also provided another list of lower-tempo songs to add into your mix that will be more tolerable to your animals — though annoyance through repetitiveness isn’t factored in here.

Fanatix found that songs within the 50-60 BPM range are generally well tolerated by pets and offered up these alternatives:

The Most Pet-Friendly Christmas Songs

	Title	Artist	Tempo / BPM
1	Carol of the Bells (From «Home Alone» Soundtrack)	John Williams	47
2	Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree	Brenda Lee	67
3	Do You Hear What I Hear?	Bing Crosby	73
4	The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)	Nat King Cole	73
5	Christmas Time Is Here — Vocal	Vince Guaraldi	75
6	Frosty the Snowman	The Ronettes	77
7	Sleigh Ride	The Ronettes	77
8	Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)	Gene Autry	80
9	The Prayer	Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli	82
10	O Holy Night — Spotify Singles Holiday	Ravyn Lenae	84

I don’t know about you, but there are some bangers on the more pet-friendly list, even if Frosty the Snowman and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree have been played to death already. Consider adding some of these songs to your playlist — your pets will be thankful.

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Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for March 18, #1011

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 18 #1011.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is pretty tricky, but musicians might find the blue group easy. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Time between two things, maybe.

Green group hint: That smarts!

Blue group hint: Rockers know these well.

Purple group hint: You might write one out to pay a bill.