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Ring Tones Are Music TooWhen your cell phone rings, it's not just notification, it's music marketing at work.Narasu Rebbapragada, PC World
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I had the pleasure of having a drink with the so-called Irish Britney Spears, aka Samantha Mumba.
She sings, she dances, and she acts. In fact, she played the protagonist in the hilarious zombie movie Boy Eats Girl, which played this month at San Francisco's Irish Film Festival. I met her at an informal gathering after the movie aired. Actually, Samantha Mumba is not really like Britney Spears. Her R&B pop is more interesting, and it lacks the slutty-virgin innuendo.
Right now, Mumba is working on her upcoming album. (You can get her first album, Gotta Tell You, on Apple's iTunes Music Store.) I joked around that she needed a ring tone to market herself in the U.S., where she's pretty much unknown. She said that the subject had already come up at her record label. "What's the world coming to?" she laughed on her way out of the bar.
Here's what the world is coming to: There's hardly a major pop band out there without a ring tone for sale. Even the American Composers Orchestra will auction off ring tones created by high- brow musicians such as Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and Danny Elfman. Miss The Sopranos? Get the ring tone.