This is a long post, so I bolded the parts that are the most fun.I've been with AT&T since they were Cingular, and that's when they got a lot of these things in. If you don't know, Answer Tones (aka Ringback tones) are like the inverse of ringtones. Ringtones are when you pick what you want to hear when people call you. Answer Tones are when you pick what you want people to hear when they call you. It's the most self-indulgent and annoying thing ever, and I love it.
But browsing their site is worth doing by itself, because they have such weird little nooks and crannies on that site and you can hear all of them whether you have an AT&T account or not.
They have the obvious choices. What's Hot celebrates the current
Vans Warped Tour, Nashville Star and Wicked. You can pick just about anything from
Billy Joel's or
Elton John's Greatest Hits. You can even get you some
New Pornographers, or, to get ready for Mamma Mia, myriad selections from the
ABBA box (I'm only partially ashamed to admit I used Ring Ring for awhile).
But then they have the less obvious choices. Answer tones that were obviously either bought as part of a one-time promotional deal or to pad out their collection early on. You could look at some of these for hours.
For example, there are the Answertones that are inexplicably part of an exercise routine.
Yoga tones play the sound of a yoga instructor giving instructions and inspiration over new age music. You can get Arnold Schwarzenegger (yes, really him) giving WORKOUT INSTRUCTIONS (mostly "Up. Down. Up. Down.") over songs like
"Don't Stop Believin'",
Eddie Money's "Think I'm In Love" or Blue Oyster Cult's
"Burnin' For You".
Speaking of Arnold, you can hear a number of celebrities that have lended their voices to these things. Celebrities like
Anthony Anderson,
Burt Reynolds (who CLEARLY did no preparation for those whatsoever), NASCAR's own
Jeff Burton,
Clay Aiken and
Christina Aguilera (not singing, speaking),
Frank Grillo from Prison Break and
Meadow Soprano. And I know what you're thinking. What, Paulie Walnuts didn't sign on for this? Don't be silly. He made
six of them.
The only celebrity tones on here that are truly inspiring come from Martin Short, whose entries are basically him in character as
Katherine Hepburn and
Jiminy Glick. The Hepburn ones are truly amazing, featuring rambling about vegetables and how she smells a wet dog.
There are other weird parts, too, like the collection of celebrities who did separate tones for a list of dozens of first names, including
Ice T and hate pit resident
T.I.. And the
sound effects section is just a minefield of bad ideas. I honestly have NO IDEA what exactly the part at the end of the Angry Cat sound is supposed to be. Or why anyone would get the Bonk Bonk sound effect. Or so many more.
It truly amazes me and inspires me that a major company can still feature something this insane and disorganized. I hope they don't fix it.
