Sure, we're ten days into the new year, and the music year just passed has been covered in every imaginable manner, but have we heard the contributions of the true driving force in the music industry? The consumers who are keeping the leaky ship afloat? The voice of those people has been heard... through the announcement of Verizon's top ten ringtones for 2007. The list (which is, curiously, arranged in alphabetical order) after the jump, but for now a few thoughts.
THE GOOD: I suppose the good news depends on your opinion of one-hit-wonder rap hits of the past year (Hurricane Chris, Sean Kingston, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em). Maybe the good news is that there's only one Fergie song on there, and it isn't "Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)."
THE BAD: "The Way I Live" by Baby Boy Da Prince, and of course, Fergie.
THE WHAAAA? With Interscope announcing that Soulja Boy hit the three-million mark in ringtones, yet had only just reached gold status as far as actual album sales, it nearly makes my head hurt to think of where the music business is going from here, or if anyone will actually be releasing songs that last more than 30 seconds by this time next year.
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Spanish mobile carrier Yoigo has posted a list of its most popular ringtone downloads in the Sala de Música section of its Web site, and not surprisingly, Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music" is No. 1. Rihanna must have a killer European publicity team, because she has an almost God-like omnipresence on this continent. But the rest of the list is highlighted by Spanish and Latin American pop, including a Sevillan boy band and Spain's particularly pathetic Eurovision entry.
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As predicted by pretty much everyone, the ringtone business is starting to experience what the suits like to call "negative growth," and companies that once specialized in ringtones are now looking at business models that involve other ways to personalize cell phones. Lucky for hacky journalists, this news came just in time to get appended to the list of bad things to happen in the music industry during 2007! [
