Sunday, May 29, 2005

Why Rock Radio Is Dying...

From Drudge this AM:
Phone Ring Tone Set to Top U.K. Charts

LONDON (AP) - A cell-phone ring tone appeared set to top the British singles chart Sunday, outselling the new single by the band Coldplay by nearly four to one, a music retailer said.

"Crazy Frog Axel F," a ring tone based on the sound of a revving Swedish mo-ped, is the first tune being used on mobile phones to cross into mainstream music charts, said Gennaro Castaldo, a spokesman for HMV, the British music retailing chain.

Coldplay had hoped to go straight to No. 1 on this Sunday's British singles chart with its new song, "Speed of Sound." But by Saturday, it appeared that the ring tone - which is available for digital download and as a compact disc single - would prevail, said Castaldo.
So you've got to ask yourself, is it that the ring tone is so compelling, or is Coldplay not the "new U2," as they've been billed? I'm thinking of going down to the garage and crank up the Magna, see if I can record my own hit.

As an aside, my friend James Luther Dickinson, one of the greatest whacked Southern rockers ever born (or deep fried, as it were), once cut a single of Link Wray's great classic RUMBLE using tuned exhausts of Harleys. The bikes were in the studio, with exhausts vented to the outside. Dickinson told me he nearly suffocated, but it was a stone cold masterpiece.

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