"Destination calabria," Alex Gaudino ft. Crystal Waters:

A mashup of a Danish dance track and Crystal Waters' "Destination Unknown." Gaudino is an Italian DJ.
Ringtone worthiness: 7/10.

"Cuando amanece," Estopa:

Estopa is a "rock/rumba" group from outside of Barcelona with an apparent affinity for '70s buddy cop movies.
Ringtone worthiness: 6/10.

"Baila el chiquichiqui," Rodolfo Chikiliquatre:

How fortunate that someone was nice enough to add subtitles to this half-assed-even-for-a-novelty-song novelty song. I haven't been keeping up with the Eurovision entries this year, but this surely must be towards the bottom of the heap.
Ringtone worthiness: 8/10, but only because it sounds like a ringtone in and of itself.

"Cobarde," David Bustamante:

Your standard pretty-man pop song. I detect shades of Ricky Martin.
Ringtone worthiness: 7/10.

"Ella y yo," Grupo Aventura and Don Omar:

The presence of exactly one Latino/Reggaeton artist on this list pretty much reflects the attitude towards Latin American music here in Spain—it spices things up once in a while, but not too much.
Ringtone worthiness: 9/10. That Latin beat is perfect for the inevitable 10-second dance party you would have every time your phone rang.

"Pa' Madrid," El Barrio:

According to the sort of dubious Wikipedia entry on El Barrio, they're a "new flamenco" group, and lead singer José Luis Figuereo is a poet.
Ringtone worthiness: 3/10. Too boring!

"Escúchame mujer," Fondo Flamenco:

Now this is is a boy band: vaguely misogynistic, hangin' out down by the river in Sevilla with your shirt open, singing some harmonies over a gauzy sax. Jonas Brothers take note.
Ringtone worthiness: 9/10.

"Papeles mojados," Chambao:

For when you want your phone to ring and advertise your social consciousness. Chambao is yet another flamenco fusion group out of Andalucia. They seem like they probably burn a lot of incense.
Ringtone worthiness: 5/10.

Sala de Música [Yoigo.com]

Aly & AJ, "Potential Breakup Song"
Lyric: "Wise up now or pay the cost / Soon you will know, oh!"
Reason to put your phone on permanent vibrate: You've told your creditors "the check's in the mail" 18 times now, but they just keep calling.

Sean Kingston, "Beautiful Girls"
Lyric: "You're way too beautiful girl / That's why it'll never work / You'll have me suicidal, suicidal"
Reason to put your phone on permanent vibrate: Kinda self-explanatory, no?

Janet Jackson, "Feedback"
Lyric: "My swagger's serious / I'm heavy like a first-day period"
Reason to put your phone on permanent vibrate: Sympathy cramps.

Buckcherry, "Crazy Bitch"
Lyric: "Get the video, fuck you so good / Get the video, fuck you so good / Crazy Bitch / Crazy Bitch / Crazy... Bitch"
Reason to put your phone on permanent vibrate: You don't want to be mistaken for Paul Janka.

Afroman, "Because I Got High"
Lyric: Pick one.
Reason to put your phone on permanent vibrate: Possibility of an incoming call while you're at a networking event while you're meeting employers who are way strict about drug testing.

Hinder, The Master Of Ringtones [LiveDaily]

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.

"A Bay Bay," by Hurricane Chris
"Beautiful Girls (Main Chorus)," by Sean Kingston
"Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin')," by T-Pain
"Crank That (Soulja Boy)," by Soulja Boy Tell 'Em
"Glamorous," by Fergie
"Party Like A Rock Star," by Shop Boyz
"Rockstar," by Nickelback
"Stronger," by Kanye West
"The Way I Live," by Baby Boy Da Prince
"This Is Why I'm Hot (Chorus)," by MIMS

Verizon Wireless Announces Top Music from 2007 [PR Newswire]
Soulja Boy Tell'em Makes History as 'Crank That' Passes the 3,000,000 Mark in Downloads [PR Newswire]

As a result of this reorg, the company is closing down its "personalization services" division, meaning it will do away with its ringtones, wallpapers and other content apps. What it will focus on is slightly confusing, from the statement: "Our new strategic direction leverages our strengths as market leader in network-aware applications and refocuses us on the high growth opportunities in mobile entertainment, which today are cross platform applications, mobile advertising, and casual games." This says it more clearly: the company will develop more mobile applications similar to Vindigo's MapQuest Mobile, MovieGoer, and Vindigo City Guide applications, in effect going back to Vindigo's original charter.

Which may just be one unique instance of a company being given a new direction by its parent corporation—"Japanese mobile content company For-Side, which bought them three years ago"—after it has become unprofitable. Or it could be a sign of the times, the conquering digital hero of a few years ago forced into early retirement as new-school applications supplant old-school ringtones.

Zingy Changes Names To Vindigo; Closes Ringtone Division [mocoNews.net]

The next phase is mostly unknown, though the decreases bode poorly for more complicated formats - at least in the US and Europe. Over-the-air (OTA) formats have performed only modestly - on both sides of the Atlantic - though expectations may have been set too high by a strapped recording industry. "We are still dealing with a business that has profound challenges," explained Adam Sexton, chief marketing officer at mobile music backend provider Groove Mobile.

That puts the pressure on "the next big thing," yet this platform remains in its infancy. "Mobile music is still less than one percent of the industry," said Dave Ulmer, senior director of Entertainment Products at Motorola Media Solutions.

In other words, "profound challenges" seems like biz spin that translates to "as the bottom drops out of the ringtone market, cell phone technology has to start advancing at such a rate as to make over-the-air downloads profitable/more than a novelty, thereby allowing us to bring down the price on/attract more customers to integrated MP3 player/cell phone combos, as they have finally, slowly begun to shift folks toward downloading whole songs over their phones as an activity as every day as stealing music online. But people are starting to shy away from the circumscribed world of the 30-second polyphonic ringtone except crazed music bloggers who don't mind dropping the cost of four cups of coffee on two cruddy pop snippets, even though they keep their phone on vibrate 90% of the time. But those kooks will only give up their muddy Boots Randolph and Hurricane Chris ringtones that don't even loop properly when you pry their overly expensive, barely functional telephone from their front left pockets."

Softening Ringtone Raises Questions On Mobile Music [Digital Music News]

1. The Pretender, Foo Fighters (eight weeks on chart)
2. Bleed It Out, Linkin Park (15 weeks)
3. Never Too Late, Three Days Grace (18 weeks)
4. Paralyzer, Finger Eleven (32 weeks)
5. Misery Business, Paramore (12 weeks)
6. All Around Me, Flyleaf (16 weeks)
7, Big Casino, Jimmy Eat World (four weeks)
8. Supermassive Black Hole, Muse (21 weeks)
9. Icky Thump, The White Stripes (22 weeks)
10. What I've Done, Linkin Park (25 weeks)

Now I've beaten this drum before, but honestly. 32 weeks for that Finger Eleven song? Eight of the 10 tracks in the top 10 being on the chart for three months or more?

In the Kings of A & R diatribe, the author says, "Do you know why the modern rock ring tone business sucks? Because modern rock doesn't have personalities." Fair enough, although I would like to throw out two corollaries to that theory aside from the fact that this stuck-in-1999's-amber playlist seems to age the audience out of the ringtone market: One, there's so little movement within the genre—both in terms of how quickly songs get rotated in and how quickly artists get rotated in—that people won't really be inspired to change their ringtnes too often, and two, that there aren't really many hooks in any of these songs that can be sliced out for the purpose of annoying the people next to you on the bus. Not that "ringtone rap" and the inanities dictated by the genre are a good thing, but really: can you hum the hooks of more than half these tracks? (And no, screaming in a strangled-cat voice and saying "That was one of the Linkin Park songs!" doesn't count.) Is it any wonder that people who want a guitar to chime when they get a call would stick with the opening chords to "Welcome To The Jungle"?

(Although that Paramore song is still pretty darn catchy.)

Modern Rock: From Hero To Zero... [Kings Of A & R]

Just recently, Akon grabbed accolades as the highest-selling master ringtone artist of all time, according to information from label SRC/Universal Motown. The figures, first revealed on Thursday, show cumulative sales of 11 million master tones. The total is being driven by a number of mobile-friendly releases, including "Smack That," "Don't Matter," and "I Wanna Love You." Those songs have all earned multi-platinum ringtone sales, according to certifications issued by the RIAA. "We're thrilled that Akon has now surpassed all other artists of this era and has cemented his place in music history," said Steve Rifkind, chief executive of SRC Records.

"Smack That" was also the top-selling ringtone of 2006, but we're guessing that when "Sorry Blame Me" makes its inevitable crossover to the ringtone world, it'll do even better among the always-lucrative "Peeved Ex Who Can't Bear To Remove Former Boyfriend From Her Address Book Yet" market.

Akon Enters Master Ringtone Stratosphere, Strikes Record [Digital Music News]

BMI estimates that the 2007 music ringtone market will dip to $550 million (U.S.) in retail sales, down $50 million (U.S.) from calendar year 2006. BMI pegged the market at $600 million (U.S.) in calendar year 2006; $500 million (U.S.) in 2005; $245 million (U.S.) in 2004 and $68 million (U.S.) in 2003, respectively.

But don't worry, music business! There's good news ahead—well, sort of.

BMI projects that ringbacks will generate approximately $65 million (U.S.) in retail content revenues in 2007. This is BMI's first market estimate of the long-awaited rollout of the ringback tone market. A ringback tone is a musical work that is performed to the caller when they place a call to a participating mobile subscriber.

BMI's estimates are based on more than 520 million individual, detailed ringtone transactions analyzed by the organization over the past 12 consecutive quarters. BMI tracks census sales data on more than 325 outlets for the sale of mobile entertainment in the U.S.

"As we forecasted last year, the ringtone market matured in 2006. The slowdown in ringtone growth, however, was partially offset by the first wave of promising U.S. growth in ringback tones," said BMI Vice President of New Media and Strategic Development, Richard Conlon. "We believe that the ringtone market's growth has leveled off and the novelty phase has ended. We envision increased revenue opportunity in the streaming sectors of the mobile entertainment market, ranging from ringtones to audiovisual cellular phone TV-style offerings."

Expect another announcement like this in a year (or earlier—we don't really know many people who partake in the ringback market, and we were buying ringtones back in the monophonic days), still touting the tantalizing possibility of "TV-style offerings" on cell phones, although we don't really see those working out too well until someone decides to package a remote control as a way to help users avoid having to scroll through nine menus to get to the one program they want.

BMI Forecasts Ringtone Market Down 8% in 2007 [MarketWire]

Project X, Pt. 2: Top 10 MP3 Ringtones from Ringophone.com

Movies invite analysis. But movie trailers don't—they exist to sell the main event. Something similar could be said to apply to the relationship between songs and ringtones, with a significant difference: A two-minute trailer is made to entice you into seeing a two-hour movie. A 30-second ringtone, on the other hand, can sometimes be all you need to hear of a four-minute song—less an appetizer than a condensation, even if technically speaking it's an excerpt. Also, with movies, you don't pay $9.25 to watch the trailers; they just come with the package. Ringtones, on the other hand, often (not always, but frequently enough) cost about four times as much to download as songs do.

Below are the Top 10 RealTone MP3s from Ringophone.com as of this past Friday, February 16:

1. "Final Fantasy VII - Victory Fanfare"
2. Hinder, "Lips of an Angel"
3. "Kingdom Hearts - Final Fantasy VII - One Winged Angel (Sephiroth Final Battle)"
4. Akon ft. Snoop Dogg, "I Wanna Love You"
5. Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Sweet Home Alabama"
6. Guns N' Roses, "Sweet Child O' Mine"
7. Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G), "I Like to Move It (From Madagascar Movie)"
8. "24 - CTU Phone"
9. "Theme - Mission Impossible (v3)"
10. Akon ft. Eminem, "Smack That (Intro)"

I chose Ringophone for the most expedient reason of all: It came up near the top when I Googled "ringtones," second after MTV's site. The words "Free Ringtones (almost)" in the link header appealed to me as well—(almost) free stuff, mmm-mmm good.

Ringophone has a somewhat limited catalog; it has only three of the Top 10 from Billboard's most recent Hot Ringtone chart (50 Cent ft. Olivia's "Candy Shop," No. 5; Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps," No. 7; Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," No. 8). But decreased options can make for more interesting results—or, as in this case, a list that's frankly bonkers.

As you'd figure with snippets that loop till you pick up the damn line, repetition is a theme: Two from classic rock songs with "Sweet" in the title, two from Akon featuring [guest rapper], and two from the video game Final Fantasy VII. The top pick, Fantasy's "Victory Fanfare," evokes the runty cousin of the theme for the giant enclosed-seating Pole Position game I played at Chuck E. Cheese in my youth. "One Winged Angel (Sephiroth Final Battle)" begins like epic trance before turning into bubblegum Wagner—even more bubblegum-Wagner than epic trance usually is, I mean. You can practically see the Viking helmets bob in time to the voices. Oddly, what stands out isn't the choir, the kettledrum, or the massed strings. Heard two rooms away from my computer, the track's harmonica cut through everything, including the washer and dryer adjacent to the kitchen in which I was standing.

Speaking of cutting through clutter—ah, Hinder. They just keep finding ways to enrich our lives. Imagine a confused young man near the end of a first date, on the verge of a lover's clinch, who suddenly gets a call. Out blasts: "My girl's in/The next room/Sometimes I wish she was you." (And I mean "blasts": Austin Winkler's voice is mixed gargantuanly high up; you could hear it on a tarmac on Christmas Eve.) If this doesn't quite reach the pitch of "Secret Lovers" in that T-Mobile commercial, it's still pretty awkward. In the interest of science, I asked a handful of female friends about the scenario and got a split response; half of the answers ranged from "Who cares about an ill-timed ringtone?" to "I think I would just crack up," while the less forgiving were typified by my sister Brittany: "You know, buddy, your extra baggage is . . . you need a little you time, I think."

The two Akons are a mixed bag. "Smack That" is unobtrusive, while "I Wanna Love You"—which, like Hinder. begins right on the chorus—is instantly arresting. (Maybe "Smack That" appeals to folks who want their purchased ringtones to resemble an especially loud vibration rather than an actual ring, per se.) The two "Sweet"s open with iconic guitar figures and are therefore kind of perfect; ditto "Mission Impossible," only it uses flutes. So is "I Like to Move It," though I will always prefer the Reel 2 Real original—once a Strictly Rhythm nerd, always a Strictly Rhythm nerd. My favorite here, though, is No. 8. It lasts about two seconds. Value for dollar ahoy!

Maybe next critics' poll, we'll have a ringtones ballot. But don't count on it.

Project X takes a critical look at a different Top 10 list biweekly. Suggestions should be sent to matos@idolator.com.

Ringophone.com

While it's somewhat surprising that the ringtone market has reached its highest point so quickly, it always seemed, to us, like a market that wasn't built to last; sure, we indulged in a few capricious purchases in the past (that monophonic version of Winger's "Seventeen" helped our old Nokia stick out in a crowd), but we grew out of it, electing instead to spend our money on slightly nerdier phone accoutrements. Given that customers have been reluctant about paying for any music lately, the idea that they'd save the music business by navigating through poorly laid out cell-phone menus in order to pay a premium for low-quality snippets of current pop songs (and "Because I Got High") is pretty misguided. Then again, this is an industry that thought the too stupid to remember their favorite songs' names market was worth tapping, so maybe we're giving them too much credit.

Wireless carries face subscriber slowdown [DigiTimes Telecom, via Listening Post]
Mobile Music Downloads Need Improvements [TMCNet]
Earlier: Cingular Ad Targets Demographic Of People Who Have No Idea What They Are Buying