Crazy frog hits #1 on the british charts?
Bsides
4,244 Posts
Are you serious? That little irritating ringtone thing? Is pushing platinum sales? Is this what people really want? Jesus, it probably is what people really want. depressing. probably just a pop culture glitch, but what about when ringtones make more money than album sales? Crazy frog? 18 million dollars?
Comments
When I was out there last year the number one song was that "fuck it I don't want you back" by whatshisname and then immediately following that the number one song was the answer song by that Frankie chick.
What's completely fuckin funny about that is the "fuck it" song made it on the radio out there on the pretense that it had hit #1 over here...turns out it only hit #16 here BUT the guy handling the PR over there spun it so they THOUGHT it hit #1 here...it did, on a valentines day playlist at some random radio station. So it was all bullshit but it was enough to get it spins out there and hype it up...fuckin sad how it works.
That Frog business has spent ??5 million on advertising, so every fuggin' ad break after 9pm, it's on at least twice per ad break.
The Jamster franchise has made over ??30 million on it reportedly, including its rampage through Europe.
I just think its amazing. the commercials air over here too. they are like really short and I always though, who the fuck spends money on that? drunk people? But the fact that the cell phone is right in their hand anyway makes facilitating the purchase so easy that it works.
still, it fucking boggles the mind.
Are you talking about that banner ad that'd been up everywhere about the "craziest ringtone" that isn't crazy at all, it's just irritating? How could that be a #1 hit? It's an annoying ringtone!
I don't know how it is in the US, but there are scores of pre-teen kids with mobile phones in the UK, and it's at these kids that the Jamster ads (and the spin-off record) are being pitched. According to some reports, Jamster has spent between ??7m and ??10m on this new campaign alone. They're causing a stir in advertising circles right now as well. Because the "flip-the-channel" factor is so high with the Crazy Frog ads, other companies don't want to share ad breaks with them, so it's becoming tougher to sell that ad-space.
As for the musical merits of it...well, there aren't any, really. What I'll say in its defence - or, more accurately, in defence of the UK singles chart, as opposed to that of the US - is that it's got there on physical sales, which means that people are actually buying it rather than simply hearing it on fifty different radio stations eight or nine times a day. Therefore, like it or not, it's genuinely popular despite receiving zero airplay - unlike Coldplay's current single, which it was up against, and which has had saturation radio coverage. A novelty cover of a 20-year-old Eddie Murphy soundtrack joint fronted by a cartoon character humbling The Great White Hope of British rock music? That's funny as fuck to me.
While I find it a bit exasperating on one level that people will go out and buy a record like that (or at least buy it for their kids), at the same time I quite like the fact that it's possible for a record like that to be a number one hit. I mean, can a song be a number one hit in the US on singles sales alone? Or is it all about getting radio on lockdown? Do songs become popular over there because you hear them on the radio all the time, or because people like them enough to go out and buy the record? These are serious questions, btw - I'm genuinely interested in the differences between what makes a hit in the US as opposed to the UK, and how that shit works, because there's no way something like "Macarena" would have been a number one over here for six fucking months, and that's no less of a gimmick record than the Crazy Frog.
Yeah it was. And then that fool nicked it and made a mint.
I'm sick of that advert man. I have to turn the damn sound off every ad break.
It speaks volumes about the kind of sucka folls here in the UK. I mean, at the moment there are some fairly decent releases in the charts which at least show some kind of intelligence behind the music other than just a sales pitch and yet this crap is outselling it.
WTF.
Well, popular taste generally isn't all that sophisticated. Not trying to defend it, nor look down my nose at it for that matter - just calling it as I see it. Not that it's a unique or original observation or anything.
that song is irritating as fuck, but hey, it's little kids buying it, let them have their fun! I for one think Coldplay are as dull as dishwater, and make Maroon 5 sound like Sabbath, so I was delighted to hear that the first single from their new album, with it's gynormous marketing campaign and months of major label time taken to get it to market, was beaten to the top by that idiot frog record.
Finally, how about breakbeat raertones? the Impeach the President break can be yours with a little mpeg of breakers?
let's do it!
JB
no kidding.....?
all of the cell phone ads I see are for Crime Mobb-Knuck If U Buck,Trillville-Some Cut,Fabulous-Breathe,etc..
i don't think this is a fluke though - i fully expect to see albums of ringtones in stores and selling, surely by next year
I've never even seen this guy before - like dude said above, the only Jamster commercials we get here are for ringtones of Chingy, Mike Jones, Trillville, etc... and those dumb wallpaper things...
Trust me, dude - you don't wanna know him. They've taken an inane babble of a ringtone and schlopped it over a bad retake of Faltermeyers Axel F.
Euro-tastic shite house at its overhyped, over-budgeted worst.
Something I meant to mention earlier - some enterprising dancehall producers have come up with something called the Crazy Frog riddim. I saw the first fruits of it in HMV last Friday, although I can't remember what it's called or who it's by. They don't have turntables in HMV, and I didn't have the nerve to either ask a member of staff what it was like or buy it blind on the off-chance it was dope. If it goes on to achieve Diwali levels of ubiquity, I may have to cut my ears off.
I've heard Robbo Ranx rinse that one.
A-ring-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-di-di-ding-DOOOOONG-ring-ding-DONG!