April 10, 2005
Tossing their tunes in the ring
A lot of hit songs have been turned into cellphone ring tones in recent months, helping to make that market the fastest-growing realm of the music business. But could a ring tone become a hit song? The Los Angeles Times reports.
"The idea intrigues hip-hop artist and producer Lil Jon, who has seen several of his songs become top-selling ring tones in truncated form.
"I could make a song for a cellphone that could go on the music charts," he says. "That would be amazing."
Lil Jon — the king of the subgenre known as crunk — in a new deal he's signed with BlingTones, a New York City company that bills itself as the only wireless service dedicated to producing and distributing original music for cellphones.
BlingTones isn't alone in this new frontier. Other companies are also signing artists to create exclusive ring content; a company called Zingy has deals with 50 Cent and others, while producer Timbaland is working with MTV.
And the talk is big all around, though reminiscent of the talk in the late '90s about Internet-only record labels — an idea that pretty much fizzled when the dot-com boom turned bust.
Peter Gaston, mobile editor for sister pop-culture magazines Spinn and Vibe, is a little dubious of the claims, though bullish on the ring tone market on the whole. "The mobile world is definitely the next frontier," he says. "The next two or three years will see integration of MP3 into mobile phones."
Lil Jon definitely sees this as a chance to get his foot in an opening door, both business-wise and creativity-wise."
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