Apple Music and Sonos

Can Apple Music & Sonos change the way we connect at home?

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Killer Mike

Killer Mike is Michael Render. Hip hop artist. Activist. Actor. He stole the show on Outkast’s Grammy award winning “The Whole World”, and is celebrated for his solo work and his collaboration with EI-P, known as the hip hop supergroup Run the Jewels. He still lives in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife Shana and his children.

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St. Vincent

Musician and songwriter Annie Clark–aka St. Vincent–is one of the most distinct voices and original guitarists of her generation. Her recent album, the self-titled St. Vincent, won her “album of the year” designations from the NME, the Guardian, and Entertainment Weekly and the Best Alternative Album Grammy. An incredible live performer, Clark has been heralded as “the first truly 21st century guitar hero” by Guitar World magazine, and is constantly pushing the boundaries of today’s musical landscape.

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Matt Berninger

Matt Berninger is the singer and songwriter for indie rock band The National. A Cincinnati, Ohio native, he studied graphic design and worked in advertising before quitting in his 30s to follow his passion for music. Berninger now lives in Venice, California with his wife Carin, daughter Isla and award-winning filmmaker and metal-head brother, Tom.

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Crazy for Love

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French | Dutch | German

Love, by the numbers

It’s a movie cliché to dim the lights and flip on the Marvin Gaye to get that special someone in the mood. But is that just a token scene, or is there data to validate that playing music out loud actually has an effect?

Now there is. And, the answer is: Basically, yes.

In our Music Makes it Home study, Sonos surveyed 30,000 people from around the world and filmed participants in 30 homes to measure how their relationships changed while music played out loud in the home. And what it says has some striking implications for music’s ability to ramp up the romance.

Let’s get it on

The big takeaway is that music out loud means more sex — 67 percent more sex, in fact, for those who listen to music out loud the most versus those who don’t at all. On average, this is a global gain of one lovemaking session per week. That’s 52 more romps a year, just from having some music on in the home.

66 percent of people who listen to music out loud the most (around 10.5+ hours per week) also best know the song that turns their partner on. Just 28 percent of people who don’t listen out loud know their partner’s get-in-the-mood tune.

We also know via biometrics that couples tracked in the study enjoyed 37 percent more active time in the master bedroom for the period of time music played out loud in the home. You can draw your own conclusions there.

Australians are very committed music fans — 46 percent of them enjoy music more than they enjoy sex.

Almost one in five feel music played aloud during sex makes the act better, with 47 percent attributing that feeling to music making sex more exciting and 44 percent saying music makes it more rhythmic.

Many songwriters gain inspiration listening to music. Well, so do some couples. Among those surveyed, 12 percent made the first move in the bedroom because of a song that came on.

Can you feel the love tonight?

Now that we’ve gotten the PG-13 stuff out of the way, let’s talk about the effects music has had on attraction and love too. Getting touchy-feely for a moment, the memories and emotions music evokes have a powerful effect on bringing two people together. Getting science-y for a moment, music is correlated to hormones that promote expressing love, feeling love and everything in between.

Music, much like a good concealer or a mean haircut, can make you hotter. Say you love David Bowie. If someone else puts on “Blackstar,” you’re likely going to find them more attractive -- at least, according to our data which says 59 percent link musical taste to hotness. Likewise, though, 28 percent said they suspect a current or recent partner lied about liking a certain genre to seem more attractive.

Among the 109 people from 30 families that this study tracked, they overall felt 16 percent more loved when music was aloud, and the share of those who felt extremely loved jumped by 87 percent. Can they get a “d’aww”?

One in five survey participants said they enjoy romantic moments more with some music on, and express their love for their partner 47 percent more.

Even intuitively, people know music has the power to set the mood — 86 percent said many moments, romantic and otherwise, are enhanced by the right music.

That being said, music can also ruin the mood. More than anyone else, the French at 37 percent said they couldn’t date someone with different taste in music (up from the global average of 33 percent). Maybe favorite music joins religion, politics and exes as things not to bring up on a first date.

And 18 percent of those surveyed have said “I love you” because of a song that came on.

The next time you feel there’s something in the air tonight, listen a little harder. That something might be sound waves.

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Family Peace is Rare

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WHAT’S GOING ON? 

We asked 30,000 people around the world if they thought music out loud would have an effect on their relationships. More than half said it wouldn’t. Turns out, they were wrong. 

How do we know? The Music Makes it Home Study. First, thousands of survey respondents provided a window into the real ways people interact with music. Then, 30 more families invited us home to see the effects of life with music out loud in action. 

Now, the results are in. Whether you come home to Bowie or Bieber, Metallica or Modest Mouse, there’s more love, more together, more happy -- all from simply listening out loud. 

WHY 

First thing’s first. Why did we do all of this? 

There’s all sorts of change happening in the music industry. Streaming music is becoming a preferred medium, and it’s never been easier to listen to music out loud at home. Sonos undertook this study and experiment in order to better understand the transformative power of listening to music out loud at home. 

There is plenty of settled science around the health, mood and brain function effects that music has on individuals, but precious little that specifically addresses the effects on two or more people who listen out loud in their homes. Anecdotally, it appears that as we age, the importance and practice of listening to music out loud becomes less of a lifestyle priority. However, an intangible transformation happens in homes with music. With this insight, Sonos set out to better the science behind this transformation through this study, a global survey of 30,000 people and in-home experiment in 30 homes. 

“For years, Sonos owners have been telling us amazing stories about how music has transformed their houses into homes … We’ve never been able to put that magic into words, but this research illustrates the real impact of listening to music out loud together — and that makes the Sonos effect easier to understand,” said John MacFarlane, Sonos Chief Executive Officer. 

Here’s how it all went down. 

HOW (AND WHEN) 

We started with a 41-question online survey in order to get a feel for how people consider the connection between music and relationships. We polled 30,000 people across the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Netherlands, France, Sweden and Australia between December 29, 2015 and January 8, 2016 with our research partner, United Minds. 

Then, a field study was conducted during a two week period between January 13th and January 29th, 2016 in 30 households in eight countries around the world. The first week, participants were instructed not to listen to music out loud, and the second week participants were encouraged to listen to music out loud as much as they wanted. 

To start off, each participating household received a package containing all equipment necessary to conduct the experiment. This included: 

1) Apple Watches for all participating household members above the age of five. These were used to track heart rate in BPM, activity in steps, acceleration, movement of the gyroscope and calories burned. 

2) A number of iBeacons varying by household size. These were used to track the participant's location on a micro level around the home. 

3) An iPhone 6s was supplied to all participants who did not have an iPhone model 5 or higher, in order to function with the Apple Watch. The phone also worked as a hub, collecting data from the Apple Watch and iBeacons and then uploading the data to the server continuously. The phone was also used for video journaling by the different household members. 

4) At the midpoint of the study period, a team from Sonos arrived at the households to install a Sonos system with Apple Music that participants used to play music out loud. As part of the experiment during the duration of this week, we received data from the speakers on what tracks were played and what volume the music was played on. 

Finally, in addition to the location and biometric data from the field study, a standardized PANAS survey was sent out during week one and two to gauge participants’ emotional state. 

WHO 

30,000 People surveyed from 8 different countries around the world -- Australia, Canada, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States -- about how music out loud touches every part of their lives.

30 Homes and 109 participants in those eight countries made up of couples, families with children, brother-and-sister roommates, in-laws and beyond. 

3 Artists: We asked three amazing artists to share some thoughts about how music changes the way they connect with their loved ones at home. Killer Mike and his family showed us how music adds more fun to everything they do together, from daily chores to late night entertaining. Matt Berninger of The National discussed how his family uses music to inspire magical moments and new family traditions. And Annie Clark -- AKA St. Vincent -- brought together the perfect mix of friends and a great playlist to transform her brand new house into a home, sweet home. 

1 Doctor: With all of the people, data and ideas coming together for this study, we wanted someone who would be able to analyze it all from a scientific and medical perspective. Enter neuropsychologist Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, author of the international bestselling book This is Your Brain on Music, as a consultant to advise before, during and after the study.

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Happy, by the numbers

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Exchanged smiles. Deep conversations. Random inside jokes. Spontaneous hugs. It’s the small moments that make up a happy home. And who wouldn’t want more happy?

“No one says on their deathbed ‘I wish I had checked Facebook for an extra 8 hours.’ They say ‘I wish I had spent more time with the people I really care about.’ There’s an evolutionary story underlying this,” explains Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, award-winning neuroscientist and author of This Is Your Brain on Music. [LINK TO HIS POST] “We are a social species. We enjoy the company of others and indeed, as many studies have shown, we don’t develop normally if we lack it.”

According to the results of the Music Makes it Home study, playing music out loud at home not only brings families closer together, but it also makes people happier.

In the study, Sonos first asked 30,000 people around the world to talk about how they feel about music. Then, the field study looked at 30 more families in order to see the effects of life with music out loud in action. Using iPhones, Apple Watches, iBeacons and motion-activated cameras, a variety of data was collected. Throughout the study, emotions ran high.

The results are inspiring.

More happy

If you ever needed an excuse to listen to more music out loud, now’s your chance. According to the survey results, people who listen to music out loud the most are 11 percent happier with their life as a whole, when compared to people who don’t listen to music out loud.

Also from the survey:

Music lovers laugh 15 percent more.

62 percent of respondents reported that their favorite music makes them feel happy.

Over in the home field study, participants on average reporting feeling 16 percent more positive emotions, and 13 percent less negative emotions during the week with music out loud.

Specifically, people in the homes felt:

25% more inspired

22% more active

19% more enthusiastic

14% more excited

13% less distressed o 12% less upset

12% less jittery

Next time someone yells to turn it down, try grabbing them by the hand, giving them a twirl and letting the happiness soak in.

Better food

Now, do you like tasty food? Good, so do we. Think about your lunches and dinners during the workweek. Do you want those ten meals to taste better?

In the survey, 58 percent said food tastes better with music. Now take those ten meals and think about it over a year. That’s 520 better tasting meals you could be eating.

Also according to our survey, 50 percent enjoy cooking more while listening to music. This was underlined in the experiment, where we could see an increase in the time spent together in the kitchen by 33 percent.

Bring on the yum.

More healthy

Life is frustrating. There’s no way around the fact that moments, people, mishaps and frustrations happen. You can probably quickly think of four things that annoyed you today. What if you could take one of those away?

With music on, people in the field study said they were 24 percent less irritable -- meaning one of those four things may not have rubbed the wrong way when the tunes were blaring.

People were also more active during the week with music. We saw that the number of steps taken increased by 2 percent, and the amount of calories burned went up by 3 percent.

More fun

On to the really fun stuff. The participants in the field study reported that, with music out loud, they felt on an average 19 percent more enthusiastic and 25 percent more inspired.

The survey also showed that 83 percent believe doing chores is easier when listening to music.

Oh, and last, but not least, almost one quarter (24 percent) of people would rather give up sex than listening to music.

We all want more happy, and if possible, all of the happy. Turn up the volume and go get it.

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