Gone are the days when the only way to track the popularity of a song was to view a rough estimate of it's retail sales. In today's technologically dynamic world, you can purchase an individual song in a number of ways. There is the old fashion way, which is to purchase a CD Single (or the 45" if you are Joe Wettner). You can also purchase it through an online retailer such as iTunes or Amazon. Many of the newest cell phones allow you to purchase the song straight from the phone and to listen to it on the software included with the phone.  Well, let's enter another player into the fray...the Ringle.  No kids, it's not some new ass-twittering slang term, this is a legitimate term being used by the music industry to inflate their numbers.  Well, perhaps inflate isn't the proper term.  A Ringle is basically a downloaded cell phone ringtone, often packaged with a remix version and possibly another song by the band.  The plan is to market this similarly to how a single is marketed.  The music industry hopes that sales of Ringles will be reported in the final tallies of total single sales.

"The idea is to capitalize on the booming sales of cell phone ringtones many of the music buying youth seem to be spending their hard earned cash on these days. The ringle will be packaged similar to the traditional singles...the song, a remix track and maybe another song from the band's album. The difference with the ringle will be the addition of a code for consumers to go online and download the track they purchased as a ringtone. The labels hope this will be a perfect marriage of the online and offline as well as helping to get traditional music stores in the digital ringtone market."

It seems like a pretty logical concept, and in fact, may be a little progressive for the typically slow-to-evolve music industry.  The problem is that they are going to be charging outrageous fees for the ringle, which may not be in line with what consumers are used to paying for a ringtone.  Wal-Mart and Best Buy are expected to carry ringles sometime in October, and they will retail for about $6.  Let's think about this for a second. Most people who would buy this don't have just one ringtone on their phone.  They probably have about 8-10.  At $6 a pop, a customer would be spending abut $60 just to have a band's ringtone on their phone.  To illustrate the lunacy, here is a short list of things that you can buy for $60: