Hip-Hop's New World to Conquer: Your Phone
Hip-Hop's New World to Conquer: Your Phone

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.

And what people are buying is mostly hip-hop.

The No. 1 ringtone the week of Nov. 27 was Snoop Dogg and Pharrell's "Drop It Like It's Hot." If you listen to it (there are a number of sites where you can browse different versions of the same tone) you might think you are hearing a Steely Dan number from the 1970's. And you will notice that although the ringtone has those funny sliding notes, it lacks what makes the original so original, the clucking tongues in the background.

The No. 2 ringtone was Usher and Alicia Keys's "My Boo": pure Muzak, cheesy organ and all, set to the deadly beat of a drum machine. Where is all the sexy stuff? Usher's sultry, insinuating, breathy voice is gone, and no one, sorry to say, is faking a climax into the mike. No. 3, "Lean Back" by Terror Squad, sounds like Greek dance music with its minor melody and frilly trills.

Today's tones descend from a long line of annoying rings. The first ringtone was Nokia's notoriously irritating monophonic one based on "Gran Vals" by the 19th-century Spanish composer Francisco Tarrega.

Why did ringtones take off? Or, rather, why are they taking off now? Because, whether they are irritating or funny or odd, they satisfy something that iPods and other MP3 players cannot. With an iPod, no one knows what you are listening to. But with a ringtone, the anti-iPod, everyone within earshot hears what you hear.

And, sure enough, phones that play ringtones and music are now chasing down the iPod market.

Already a number of countries have found ways to make ringtones sound more musical. Some have learned to embrace the irritation, turning it into a kind of art. In Korea, one company has introduced a phone that can play 128-tone polyphonic music. (That will make the music, whatever it is, sound a lot better.) In London, some Underground stations have vending machines that allow you to download music into your cellphone. In Paris, there is a sonic show at the Georges Pompidou Center that includes a collection of ringtones composed especially for cellphones. Recently in Estonia there was a ringtone concert. And in Uzbekistan, tests are being done on the musical equivalent of pheromones for ringtones.

In the world of ringtones, the United States lags behind Europe and Asia. If you doubt it, check out ringtonia.com, a Web site devoted to the topic, and you will get an idea of how the bell is going to toll when it tolls for you.