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People also could assign different ringtones to different callers – say, “Take This Job and Shove It” when your boss calls, ha ha – as a sonic form of Caller ID.Īt the same time, much was made of the millions of dollars ringtone sales brought to a grateful music industry that was struggling to adapt to the digital age. Mastertones mimicked the clarity of what one could hear on the radio, making the ringtone an easy and addictive way to hear snippets of one’s favorite music. Ringtones became an aural fashion accessory, as people scrambled to personalize their phones with the newest or coolest tunes. In the early- to mid-2000s, the ability to play a customized sound for incoming calls – usually a blaring few seconds of a favorite song called a “mastertone” – was a fun novelty for people buying their first cellphones. May’s personal experience mirrors what has been a sharp decline in ringtone sales over the last half-decade. I remember listening to them, but I don’t remember using them, because most of the time I was in school or work.”īut by about 2009, May lost interest in buying ringtones altogether.

And yet, “the majority of the ones I downloaded, I never really used.

#Buy ringtones download

“When new songs came out, I would download them … whatever was popular at the time,” she told CNN. “And then my dad got the phone bill.”Īt the time, the expense seemed worth it to have access to fresh music on her phone.

“I think I downloaded about 10 of them, and at that point they were $5 or $6 each,” May, now 22, recalls of her adolescent shopping spree.

When she got her first cellphone about a decade ago, one of the first things she did was go to her service provider’s website and stock up on ringtones.