A unique music album will hit the charts later this year, but the target market are not humans, even though they'll be the ones to pay for it.
Created by David Teie and to be released by Universal Music, "Music for Cats" will purr and meow its way to our hearts and more importantly, our feline companions' hearts, once it is released on October 28.
Teie, an American cellist and music researcher at the University of Maryland, said the biggest challenge is people thinking that his project is "silly."
"If you really look into it, what's silly is the idea that only one species could have music available for it," Teie said, as per The Guardian.
According to its Kickstarter campaign, the project was born from efforts "to bring real, scientifically credible music to as many members of the animal kingdom as possible." Cats became the first choice as they are widely kept as pets and companions.
According to Teie, he wrote two songs in 2008 that elicited positive reactions from 77 percent of cats that heard them, based on a scientific study published in Applied Animal Behavior Science.
Natural biological response
In its website, he said every species has a natural biological response to sounds in their early development stage. For cats, these sounds are usually chirping birds, or their mother's purrs.
For the last six years, he worked on his goal with limited resources, until he brought his project on Kickstarter. The funding period lasted for 30 days, from October to November 2015.
And it was a hit, as more than 10,000 backers pledged $241,651, bringing to life 55 minutes of purring and suckling noises, as well as Teie on his cello with the US National Symphony Orchestra, aimed to soothe and calm the cats' senses. The music are matched to the cats' frequency range.
The music will be made available for free at shelters, as abused and feral cats show more positive response to the calming music.
In the same report from The Guardian, major label Universal said they believe that there is a huge untapped market for music for other species. A spokesperson said the company is "thrilled to be part of this world-first project" and that future "Music For" albums could possibly follow suit for dogs and horses.
Teie said he hoped more similar work would be accepted in the future. After all, his research has not been easy, as he is actually allergic to cats.
"I've grown from being an admirer to a genuine cat lover now, but I'm still allergic," he said.