Not too long ago, I found myself participating in a
history-steeped college tradition”“ sitting around with a
bunch of guys doing nothing before a night out ““ when
someone’s cell phone went off. For those of us who
didn’t know the lucky owner so well, the immediately
recognizable ring tone, the theme from “The Fresh Prince of
Bel Air,” was greeted with chuckles and approval of his
little pop culture reference. By the third call, however, we were
ready to throw his phone out the window.
People complain about the music industry’s inability to
adapt with technology, but the fact that this guy shelled out a few
bucks for a novelty that got old in five minutes is proof that old
guys in suits will never run out of ways for us to give them our
money. In recognition, this week’s Billboard charts feature
the launch of a new category ““ Hot Ringtones, a weekly top 20
tracking of polyphonic ring tone sales.
You may laugh, but the numbers are no joke. The cell phone ring
tone market is projected to top $300 million this year, and it only
keeps growing. Ring tones are outselling legal downloads by more
than 3-to-1, despite costing twice as much, and not being a real
song. And they’ll be raking in even more dough once
“mastertones,” or actual recordings, are rolled out in
the near future. (When this happens, I’ll be switching first
thing to Robert Plant’s blood-curdling rebel yell from Led
Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”)
So, gimmicky, poorly imitated versions of successful songs are
selling by the millions.
But the surprise lies in just how not surprising the chart is:
the top-selling cell phone ring tone in the country is also the
current #1 single ““ Usher and Alicia Keys’s “My
Boo.” In fact, at first glance, the Hot Ringtones chart could
easily be mistaken for the Billboard singles chart-““ Snoop
Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” Terror
Squad’s “Lean Back,” and Ciara’s
“Goodies” all grace the top ten of both charts.
This kind of bothers me. There are literally thousands of cell
phone ring tones available for purchase, from classical to video
game theme music (nothing’s more entertaining than a
professor’s reaction to being interrupted by the Super Mario
theme song). It allows for a remarkable level of personalization
and creativity in an everyday device. I mean, you can set different
ring tones to go off based on whoever’s calling. Like
“Superfly” for a best friend, and “Mama Said
Knock You Out” for when mother dearest is checking up. I used
my trial download on “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” but
use it only for people I’m trying to avoid. The possibilities
here are endless.
Instead we get 97,000 purchases of “My Boo” in one
week. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of personalizing your
cell phone? Why would you pay to have the same particular ring tone
as hundreds of thousands of other people? (By the way, how much
longer can the rest of us be expected to put up with 50 Cent ring
tones? He has to be the all-time bestseller. But there seems to be
something wrong with college kids carrying phones playing the
chorus “Many men wish death upon me” around
campus).
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that, like trucker
hats, even when given an opportunity to express their individuality
in the most individualistic society in the world, Americans would
rather just follow the crowd. In this case, all the credit goes to
the music industry for keeping up this illusion of choice between
pre-programmed personalities. It’s been very successful for
them for quite a few years now.
So if you’re going to buy into their scheme, you might as
well do so with a little fun and ingenuity. Or better yet, just
keep your phone on vibrate.
E-mail Lee at alee2@media.ucla.edu.