Remember when cell phones had only a handful of rings? Some ululated, some bleated. The more adventurous ones offered snatches of Beethoven.
Back in those proto-wireless days, one monophonic “Ode to Joy” triggered by an incoming call would have everyone within earshot ransacking their pockets and handbags for the guilty handset.
Not so today. Recognizing your own in the urban din is a lot easier due to the proliferation of ringtones–those little sound files you can store on your cell phone to vary the way it rings.
Small, cheap, infinitely variable, they seem perfectly designed for the gadget-toting American consumer. Since arriving in 2001, ringtones have exploded into myriad forms and functions, from rings to music to spoken word.
And people are using these sounds–which usually cost between $2 and $2.50 each–as personal signatures.
Ubiquitous, annoying to some, but just as often entertaining, they tag the urban soundscape like aural graffiti, announcing a user’s essence with a few bars of 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop,” or a pop-cultural touchstone from, say, the Golden Age of radio, like this little gem: “Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive …”
And they are going like hotcakes.
Retail sales of ringtones are expected to top $500 million in the U.S. this year. That’s up from $245 million in 2004, and $68 million in 2003, according to BMI, the performing rights organization that represents songwriters, composers and music publishers.
The numbers are impressive. But to the industry, they indicate that the U.S. still trails the rest of the world in mobile friendliness. In the U.S. not all 180.5 million wireless subscribers–last year’s figures–can download ringtones because they lack the right phone or carrier. But that will change as cell phones morph into receivers for video and satellite radio and who knows what else. And when it does, an industry able to tempt phone users with the latest ear candy will be there to mine the possibilities.
“We really look at the phone as its own medium,” says Jonathan Dworkin, who heads artists and repertoire for BlingTones, touted as the world’s first wireless label. The company, founded in 2004, specializes in original 30-second hip-hop tracks created by producers such as Q-Tip, D-12’s Kon Artis and Hi-Tek.
From the commercial variety to gangsta rap, these mini-songs are sold through most major U.S. mobile carriers in polyphonic and master track quality, some with lyrics, some without.
“It’s such an incredibly powerful distribution system,” Dworkin says. “Potentially, you’re in 150 million pockets within a year or so.”
Top of the tones
The ringtone market raked in more than $4 billion worldwide last year.
Here are the top 5 from last week:
1. “Just a Lil Bit,” 50 Cent
2. “Wait (The Whisper Song),” Ying Yang Twins
3. “Still Trippn’,” Mike Jones featuring Slim Thug and Paul Wall
4. “We Belong Together,” Mariah Carey
5. “Cater 2 U,” Destiny’s Child
Source: Billboard
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Edited by Curt Wagner (cwwagner@tribune.com) and Drew Sottardi (dsottardi@tribune.com)
