In late October Geoff Mayfield, the director of charts at Billboard magazine, which recently started a Hot Ringtones chart, told National Public Radio that the American ringtone business would probably rake in $300 million this year.Īnd what people are buying is mostly hip-hop. The closest cousin to the ringtone is the novelty doorbell that plays, say, "Oranges and Lemons." But that hasn't kept ringtones from selling. Take the ringtone derived from Petey Pablo's "Freek-A-Leek," a song that Kelefa Sanneh, a pop music critic for The New York Times, called "a strip-club anthem that might just be the dirtiest song on the radio." Because the ringtone has no vocals, the best part of the song - the fabulous list of chanted names - is gone: "Felicia, Tenisha, Shavon, Monica, Monique, Christina, Yolanda." What's left? Something like "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" crossed with a dirge. They may be monophonic (just the melodic line) or polyphonic (with some chords and harmony).īut they are not exactly compelling music, at least not yet. Ringtones can usually be downloaded from the Internet for a few dollars or, with certain cellphone plans, free.
They are produced by vendors who are paid by cellphone carriers to obtain the rights to format songs for various kinds of handsets. Ringtones, or ringer tones, are those tinny, no-vocals 20-second snatches of songs you hear when a cellphone rings. You just downloaded one of the hottest hip-hop ringtones from the Internet and, guess what? It is already yesterday's buzz.
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