Animal Crossing: How to Play Music

Lee Stanton August 8, 2021

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, K.K. Slider returns to grace the Villagers with his gift of music. The series has impressed fans with memorable tunes since the beginning with charming melodies and vocoded singing. This trend continues in New Horizons.

Read on to learn all about music in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, including how to register songs and play music. We’ll also include the complete tracklist containing more than 90 songs you can play once registered.

How to Register Songs in Animal Crossing

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, songs have to be registered before you can play them on stereos. You first have to buy the music tracks, which are primarily found in the Nook Stop. Each song costs 3,200 Bells to purchase.

Here’s how players will buy songs in New Horizons:

Approach a Nook Stop.
Press A to interact with it and select “Nook Shopping.”
In the Nook Shopping menu, select “Special Goods.”
Purchase the song available for the day.
Wait for a day to get the song in the mail.
Once you get the song, put it in your pocket.
Approach any stereo in your home.
Press the A button and open the music menu.
Move your cursor to “Register” and select the song in your pocket.
After you register the song, you can play it using any stereo in your home.

The registration process only works for new songs you haven’t registered yet. Duplicate tracks cannot be registered at all, as it would be pointless. However, duplicate tracks aren’t useless. You can hang them on your home’s walls as decoration.

Songs from the Nook Stop make up the majority of the tracks. Some of them have to be given by K.K. Slider himself when he has a concert. This process is instant unless you have a friend over on your island, in which case the song will arrive the next day.

The songs only available via K.K.’s concerts include:

Animal City
Drivin’
Farewell
Welcome Horizons (obtainable when K.K. Slider arrives for the first time)

To get the first three tracks on this list, you have to request them from K.K. Slider when he comes to perform on Saturdays. He gives you the copies right after his performance ends.

If you play the game on your birthday, you also get the “K.K. Birthday” track.

How to Play Music on Stereos in Animal Crossing

To play your favorite songs on stereos in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you’ll need a stereo. Without a stereo, you won’t be able to play music. Remember, Portable Record Players can play your songs, but only at random.

To play music on stereos in New Horizons, please follow these instructions:

Procuring a Stereo From The Nook’s Cranny Shop

Head over to The Nook’s Cranny Shop.
Check if there are Radios.
If the one you have is there, purchase it.
If it’s not there, go back the next day and repeat the previous steps.

If you want to collect all available stereos in New Horizon, we recommend you return until you get all 15 of them. Once you get them all, these steps won’t matter anymore unless you want copies of the same stereo.

How to Play Your Songs on Stereos

Place your stereo in your home.
Approach the stereo.
Press A to interact with it and bring up the menu.
Choose the track you want to play and press A.
Enjoy the music.

Alternatively, you can press Y to randomize the song selection. When you go from room to room, the stereo plays songs at random. This option is a fun feature that adds a degree of freshness to your home.

Visitors who come to your home will also hear the songs at random like you. Try it out and see what songs come up when friends want to hang out.

When you’re in the stereo’s menu, you’ll notice the “+” and “-“ signs to the right of any track’s title. Those buttons control the radio’s volume. Fiddle with the settings until you find the perfect volume for your game.

Stereos were initially made for the home only, and Portable Record Players were the ones to take with you outside. However, an update changed all that. Now players can place stereos anywhere, and music can be enjoyed across the island, playing multiple tracks simultaneously.

For example, you can place a stereo in one part of town playing K.K. Aria. Another stereo farther away can be set to play K.K. Dixie, and others as you wish. The update makes stereos more appealing, too.

Portable Record Players are still in the game, though. They have their own appeal, which is why we’ll talk about them next.

How to Play Music on a Record Player in Animal Crossing

Unlike regular stereos, these Portable Record Players can only play your music by selecting random tracks in your collection. There are no exceptions to the rule.

You can purchase the Portable Record Player in The Nook’s Cranny for 4,000 Bells. It comes in seven colors:

Red
Yellow
Blue
Green
Pink
Black
Orange

The advantage of Portable Record Players is that you can take them with you anywhere and place them where you want them. Treat it more as a radio than a music player, as you’re not in control of the songs it plays. Since there are 98 songs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, there’s less of a possibility of hearing the same song twice in a session.

To play music on a Portable Record Player, check out these steps:

Place a Portable Record Player outside.
Press A to open the menu.
Play some music.
Carry on with any activities nearby.

Just like in real life, the closer you are to the stereo or record player, the louder the music. The range to hear any stereo is five tiles. Sadly, you won’t be able to listen to it from farther away.

Portable Record Players are neat if you like the random songs playing aspect. They cost more than a stereo, though, so make sure you save a bit more Bells before heading to The Nook’s Cranny.

How to Play KK Music in Animal Crossing

To unlock K.K. Slider concerts on your island, you have to keep working on your island until it reaches three stars in ratings. Once you do, you’ll get a note from Isabelle saying that K.K. Slider wants to visit the next day. Note that this first visit works every day, so you don’t have to wait until Friday.

Once you get the island to three stars and Saturday arrives, follow these steps to ask him to play:

After increasing your ratings, wait until K.K. Slider arrives.
K.K. Slider will play his first song here, Welcome Horizons.
After talking to your post-concert, the game will send you home.
When you arrive, Tom Nook will be in your home with a copy of Welcome Horizons and an Island Designer App.

Every Saturday after this, you can expect K.K. Slider to come and take requests.

On the following Saturday, K.K. Slider will come to your island again.
Throughout the day, he plays random songs.
At 6 P.M., he starts taking requests.
When you talk to him, you get to choose from three options.
Choose an option and sit down as he starts singing.
Repeat until he leaves.
He’ll give you a recording of the first song he played that day.

The three options are:

“I’ll leave it up to you!”

This option lets K.K. Slider choose whichever track he wants to play. Since he’s already playing music before you even arrive, he continues playing what he has been singing.

“I’m in a mood…”

If you tell K.K. Slider this, you get to pick from five different moods. They are happy, slightly grumpy, laid-back, a little blue, and in a confused mood.

K.K. Slider will pick a song according to your mood. The tracks are still random but within your chosen category.

“Gimme that one song…”

Should you have a specific song in mind, you can type it out for K.K. Slider to play. This option is also how you unlock the three secret songs in New Horizons. Make sure you type the song’s name correctly so he can play them.

The Complete Song List

Here’s the complete song list of all 98 songs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Song Titles A-I

Agent K.K.
Aloha K.K.
Animal City
Bubblegum K.K.
Café K.K.
Comrade K.K.
DJ K.K.
Drivin’
Farewell
Forest Life
Go K.K. Rider
Hypno K.K.
I Love You
Imperial K.K.

Song Titles K

K.K. Adventure
K.K. Aria
K.K. Ballad
K.K. Bazaar
K.K. Birthday
K.K. Blues
K.K. Bossa
K.K. Calypso
K.K. Casbah
K.K. Chorale
K.K. Condor
K.K. Country
K.K. Cruisin’
K.K. D&B
K.K. Dirge
K.K. Disco
K.K. Dixie
K.K. Étude
K.K. Faire
K.K. Flamenco
K.K. Folk
K.K. Fusion
K.K. Groove
K.K. Gumbo
K.K. House
K.K. Island
K.K. Jazz
K.K. Jongara
K.K. Lament
K.K. Love Song
K.K. Lullaby
K.K. Mambo
K.K. Marathon
K.K. March
K.K. Mariachi
K.K. Metal
K.K. Milonga
K.K. Moody
K.K. Oasis
K.K. Parade
K.K. Ragtime
K.K. Rally
K.K. Reggae
K.K. Rock
K.K. Rockabilly
K.K. Safari
K.K. Salsa
K.K. Samba
K.K. Ska
K.K. Sonata
K.K. Song
K.K. Soul
K.K. Steppe
K.K. Stroll
K.K. Swing
K.K. Synth
K.K. Tango
K.K. Technopop
K.K. Waltz
K.K. Western
King K.K.

Song Titles L-S

Lucky K.K.
Marine Song 2001
Mountain Song
Mr. K.K.
My Place
Neapolitan
Only Me
Pondering
Rockin’ K.K.
Soulful K.K.
Space K.K.
Spring Blossoms
Stale Cupcakes
Steep Hill
Surfin’ K.K.

Song titles T-W and Secret Songs

The K. Funk
To the Edge
Two Days Ago
Wandering
Welcome Horizons
Hazure01
Hazure02
Hazure03

The last three are songs that play when you make an invalid request. They can’t be obtained and played with your stereo.

Additional FAQs

What Animal Crossing items play music?

There are a few types of items that play music. They fall into the following categories:

• DIY Musical Instruments

• DIY Equippable Musical Instruments

• Purchasable Musical Instruments

• Purchasable Musical Instruments (Tools)

• Event Musical Instruments

• Music Players

What Shall We Listen to Today?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has many tracks for your listening pleasure. From happy to melancholy songs, there’s always something you can play to fit the mood. With a relatively recent update, stereos can now be placed anywhere on your island, too, so you can take your tunes anywhere.

What’s your favorite song in New Horizons? Do you prefer stereos or record players? Tell us in the comments section.