Carlos Bousted is a laid-back recent high school graduate and a sometime DJ. Unlike most DJs, though, Bousted does not have to lug around crates of records, CDs or even an iPod. His music is strictly cellular.
Bousted, 18, is a ringtone DJ. A competitive ringtone DJ. "You put certain songs in order and play them against other people," he said, explaining his technique. "Anytime you're walking around: `Oh, what you got?' And then you pull out your phone."
Downloadable ringtones like the ones Bousted uses -- tunes from artists like the Yin Yang Twins and 50 Cent -- have been a teenage mainstay for years, a mushrooming market worth almost US$5 billion globally (the US share is US$600 million and growing).
But as people like Bousted have grown fluent in the language of ringtones, industry executives and musicians alike have realized that they need not be duplicates of already popular songs; there is room for creativity alongside the commerce.
"We definitely see a market for original content," said Andy Volanakis, president and chief officer of Zingy, a ringtone provider that has released an album by the producer Timbaland.
When combined with technology that allows them to sound like music instead of its tinny shadow, and programs that allow anyone to make, mix or otherwise devise his or her own ringtones, the seven songs on the Timbaland album -- among the first meant to be played on a phone, not a radio or CD player -- suggest that ring tones are not merely a new money-maker; they are a new art form.
"People have really started to take this stuff seriously," said Jonathan Dworkin, vice president for artists and repertory at BlingTones, a Zingy competitor that was one of the first to focus on original works. Its partners include the crunk progenitor Lil Jon, Q-Tip, and others.
With ringbacks, voice tones (Snoop Dogg says, "Pick up the phone!") and sound effects crowding the field, there are more opportunities to circumvent the cellphone's bleep or brring than ever before. Even Nokia, which in 1991 became the first company to market a cellphone with an identifiable musical ring tone (Francisco Tarrega's Gran Vals for classical guitar), has moved away from its traditional tunes. For its newest phone, the Nokia 8801, it commissioned wholly original music and sounds, composed exclusively for cellphone by the eclectic Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Later this summer, Zingy will release a song by Free Murda, a Wu-Tang Clan acolyte, as both a single and a ringtone; it was produced by RZA, who compiled the scores for Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films.
Why would a serious musician bother? After all, a song can have multiple lives; a ringtone, just one, and a fruit-fly-length one at that. (Timbaland's seven original ringtones average just 20 seconds each.) Money is definitely one reason. As Lil Jon said of BlingTones, "They cut the check." But that's not the end of the story. "It's another way of reaching your audience," he added in a telephone interview. "It's exciting. Like, I was already thinking, what if I produce a song for the cellphone that ends up getting on music charts? The technology is so crazy, that could one day happen."
Actually, it already has: in Britain, the heavily advertised Crazy Frog ringtone -- based on a Swedish teenager's imitation of a revving engine -- topped artists like Coldplay and U2 on the singles charts just last month. And the remix is already out.
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