Jam Piper Jam
Truth Seeker
Hip-Hop's New World to Conquer: Your Phone
By SARAH BOXER
Published: November 30, 2004
You just downloaded one of the hottest hip-hop ringtones from the Internet and, guess what? It is already yesterday's buzz.
Ringtones, or ringer tones, are those tinny, no-vocals 20-second snatches of songs you hear when a cellphone rings. They are produced by vendors who are paid by cellphone carriers to obtain the rights to format songs for various kinds of handsets. Ringtones can usually be downloaded from the Internet for a few dollars or, with certain cellphone plans, free. They may be monophonic (just the melodic line) or polyphonic (with some chords and harmony).
But they are not exactly compelling music, at least not yet. 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.
The closest cousin to the ringtone is the novelty doorbell that plays, say, "Oranges and Lemons." But that hasn't kept ringtones from selling. 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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/arts/music/30ring.html?th
By SARAH BOXER
Published: November 30, 2004
You just downloaded one of the hottest hip-hop ringtones from the Internet and, guess what? It is already yesterday's buzz.
Ringtones, or ringer tones, are those tinny, no-vocals 20-second snatches of songs you hear when a cellphone rings. They are produced by vendors who are paid by cellphone carriers to obtain the rights to format songs for various kinds of handsets. Ringtones can usually be downloaded from the Internet for a few dollars or, with certain cellphone plans, free. They may be monophonic (just the melodic line) or polyphonic (with some chords and harmony).
But they are not exactly compelling music, at least not yet. 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.
The closest cousin to the ringtone is the novelty doorbell that plays, say, "Oranges and Lemons." But that hasn't kept ringtones from selling. 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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/arts/music/30ring.html?th