The Ringtone Takeover

What is your ring tone? Chances are it’s not the standard “ring ring ring” … I am going to go on a limb and say you have a 10-20 second clip of a song… probably, especially since you are reading this blog, it is a hip-hop song.

What has the ring tone done to the hip-hop music industry? Has it done anything at all…? Well if you have watched BET, MTV or VH1 (or countless other channels) lately you probably have not been able to avoid the ridiculously bland and monotonous commercials asking you to “text 54555 for the Stay Fly ring tone.” This along with the obvious fact that what was once, not so long ago, a novelty (having a music ring tones) it is now becoming the norm… still not convinced the ring tone is having an effect on the hip-hop industry, lets look at the financials for you accounting junkies.

In 2005, ring tone sales reached 600 million dollars, which exceeded expectations by 20% and was twice as large as the 2004 sales. The growth of ringtone sales are tremendous and show no signs of slowing. Ringtone sales were 4.4 billion worldwide in 2005 with a majority of those sales coming from the hip-hop industry.

So I guess the question is…so what? Well…with ringtone sales and digital music singles on the rise, along with the decline of full CD sales…if you think about it in terms of “what sells,” (and that’s what record labels will promote and push) it becomes quite clear where hip-hop is headed. It may be me just being paranoid, but doesn’t it seem as though there is a much stronger emphasis on hooks now-a-day, as opposed to really fire verses back-in-the-day. This would make since if you thought about it as a business. Artists are being rewarded for catchy, repetitive hooks and have little monetary incentive to create a full album of “good” music. How many: Nas, Talib Kweli, Little Bother or Roots ringtones do you hear? You would hate to think that artists are creating music specifically for ringtone use… but you can see why they would… there is a lot of money to be made.

With ringtones sales exponentially rising and pushing the sales of singles (and vise versa), it will be interesting, and extremely unfortunate, to see if hip-hop gets increasingly focused in creating catchy 20 second hooks and sound clips designed to sell ringtones and singles.