Sex, drugs and selling some cellphone tones
By Jeef Leeds

Rock bands have long prospered by living -- and selling -- images of hard living and brash poses. But sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are no longer enough. The definition of cool for some acts now includes mobile-phone ringtones.

Ringtones, the synthesized melodies that are programmed to play when a cell phone rings, have proved to be such a lucrative side business for cellular phone companies that record labels in the US have decided they want a piece of that revenue.

Warner Brothers Records in the past few days began showing commercials on MTV and MTV2 for a set of voice-greeting ringtones recorded by members of the punk band Green Day, in what music and cellular industry executives said is the first time a record label has paid to run its own ads for the digital snippets in the US market.

The commercials, which are part of a broader advertising campaign to promote the Sept. 21 release of American Idiot, the band's first album in four years, are a milestone for an industry where many are looking to products other than compact discs to steady the shaky revenues of the music market.

To some artists and music executives, the marketing of ringtones suggests the subversion of music to marketing ploys.

"There is a sense among some that it bastardizes the music, takes away the sincerity and the original intent of the artist," said the artist manager Tony Dimitriades, who represents acts like Tom Petty. "With where we are today, there seems to be a notion that anything goes and who cares?"

But Tom Whalley, the chairman of the Warner Bros label, part of the Warner Music Group, said that advertising the phone tones is just one part of his label's shift from mere disc factory to marketer of artists' lifestyle products.

"We're in the culture with each and every one of our artists," Whalley said.

"The ringtone can help connect that fan to the artist. If it's done with taste, I don't think it crosses that line where its commerce over art," he said.

Taste is not the first notion that springs to mind when sampling the Green Day ringtones, which cost up to US$2.49 apiece. They include the band members belching and cursing, as well as offering witty ripostes. "Pick up the phone!" demands Mike Dirnt, the band's bassist, in one. "It's your mother. I know. She's with me."

But the ringtones are in keeping with the sneering image of the punk outfit, best known for songs like Basket Case and Brain Stew, both of which are also being sold as ringtones.

There is also no question that, even if ringtones do not represent pure artistic ambition, they are resonating with the public. Last year, cellular phone users worldwide spent US$3.1 billion on ringtones, according to Consect, a mobile market research and consulting firm, with popular choices including Beyonce's Crazy in Love. (The global music business is more than 10 times as large.)

The US market, which lags behind Europe's and Asia's, rose to about US$150 million in retail sales, up from US$45 million the year before. Analysts expect the market to expand even faster now that handset manufacturers are cranking out more sophisticated phones that can play multi-channel audio files with pieces of an actual recording, with sound quality far superior to the tinny synthesized versions of songs known as monophonic or polyphonic tones. Phones usually have a screen that can display a list of hundreds of titles, which sell for US$1.50 to US$2.50 and usually contain a 30-second clip of the song.

Record executives say the market appeared to hold only limited benefits for them until recently. To produce monophonic or polyphonic tones, mobile companies did not need to license the actual recording of a song. Instead, they licensed the composition from a music publisher, paying a 15 percent royalty on average. (A song's writer or copyright holder and the artist who records it are not always the same person.) But when the real recording is used, as with so-called master tones, record labels typically receive a 50 percent cut.

Complaints about the encroachment of commercial interests into the music world are nothing new, of course. Outrage over the licensing of music for advertisements, like Nike's use of the Beatles' Revolution to peddle sneakers in the 1980s, has faded, so much so that few eyebrows are raised when Jaguar uses the Clash's London Calling to sell cars or Wrangler Jeans borrows Creedence Clearwater Revival's anti-establishment Fortunate Son for a feel-good campaign to sell pants.

The new trend is taking the record companies afield from their main business too. Two years after Universal Music Group created an in-house ringtone division, Universal Music Mobile, one-third of its sales come from non-music tones, including sound effects and jokes from impersonators, like the one who imitates George W. Bush (in Chinese, for the local market).

Cedric Ponsot, the chief executive of Universal Music Mobile, said he occasionally had trouble persuading artists, including the rock band U2, to approve selling their music in ringtone form, especially before improvements in sound quality. He said he tells artists, "If your fans are willing to pay two to three euros for a ringtone, you should respect that."