The Ultimate Dinner Party Playlist

When you’re planning a dinner party, your playlist can be just as important as your menu. The right music can help set the mood and make your evening one to remember, while the wrong choice can leave people wishing they were somewhere else!

In fact, recent studies have even shown that the right background music can increase our enjoyment of food by up to 60%. So, which songs should be on your playlist for the perfect dinner party?

To find out more, we analysed over 2,000 playlists on Spotify, featuring almost 250,000 tracks. Keep reading to see which songs, artists and genres are providing the soundtrack to dinner parties around the world, or click here to explore the data in full.

The Most Popular Dinner Party Songs

‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac claims the title of the most popular dinner party song, featuring in 134 of the playlists we analysed. Van Morrison’s ‘Into The Mystic’ came in second place, with 74 appearances, followed by Corinne Bailey Rae’s ‘Put Your Records On’, which showed up in 69 playlists.

As well as having the most popular dinner party song, Fleetwood Mac also came on top as the most popular dinner party artist, with 7 tracks in our top 100. Van Morrison claimed another second place with 5 songs, while Elton John, Harry Styles and Leon Bridges all had 4 tracks in the top 100.

For the perfect dinner party playlist, people are turning to the past, with 31% of the 100 most popular songs coming from the 1970s, compared to just 6% from the 2020s. And as for musical genres, R&B proved to be the most popular, making up 20% of the top 100, followed by folk rock with 16%.

To listen to the Ultimate Dinner Party Playlist click here.

The Most Popular Songs To Cook To

We’ve found out which songs you should have on your dinner party playlist, but what about before your guests arrive? If you’re hosting a dinner party, chances are you’ll be spending plenty of time in the kitchen cooking beforehand and will need a good soundtrack to sing along to!

So, if you love listening to music when you cook, here’s what you need on your kitchen playlist.

According to our research, the most popular song to cook to is ‘A Sunday Kind of Love’ by Etta James, which featured in 168 of the kitchen playlists we analysed. Elton John’s ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ came in second place with 122 appearances, followed by Grover Washingont Jr and Bill Withers’ ‘Just the Two of Us’, which showed up 119 times.

It’s a three-way tie for the most popular artist to listen to while cooking, with Elton John, Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder all having 5 songs in the top 100. ABBA and Harry Styles are close behind, both with 4 songs in the top 100.

As with the most popular dinner party songs, when it comes to cooking we’re also looking backwards, with 28% of the top 100 songs coming from the 1960s and 27% coming from the 1970s. Meanwhile, only 4% came from the 2020s. And as for genres, jazz and pop were the most popular, making up 24% and 19% of the top 100.

To listen to the Ultimate Cooking Playlist click here.

The Most Popular Songs for Christmas Dinner

If you’re anything like us, you’re already counting down the days to Christmas – and one of our favourite meals of the year! Whether you’ll be hosting friends and family on the big day or just cooking for yourself, you’ll want some good music to put you in a festive mood.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the number one spot goes to the undisputed Queen of Christmas, Mariah Carey, with her hit song ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ appearing in 104 Christmas dinner playlists. Following closely behind is Michael Bublé, with his version of ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas’ coming in second place, with 79 appearances.

Frank Sinatra and Michael Bublé share the title of most popular Christmas artists, with each having 6 songs in our top 100, including both of their versions of ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’. In fact, there were 5 different versions of this festive classic in our top 100, with other versions from Sam Smith, Ella Fitzgerald and Charles Snyder also making appearances.

Now you’ve got your ultimate dinner party playlist sorted, what’s next? If you’re looking for some inspiration for what to cook, our blog has plenty of delicious recipes which are sure to impress your guests!

To listen to the Ultimate Christmas Dinner Playlist click here.

Methodology

We scraped the data for 249,205 songs from 2,275 different playlists on Spotify, split into the following 3 groups:

Dinner Party Songs: playlists featuring the words ‘dinner party’ in the title
Cooking Songs: playlists featuring the words ‘cooking’ or ‘kitchen’ in the title
Christmas Dinner Songs: playlists featuring the words ‘Christms dinner’ in the title

We were then able to use this list to see which songs and artists appeared on the highest number of playlists, as well as which genres and decades were the most popular.