Among the ringtone transcriptions by Sumanth Gopinath in The Ringtone Dialectic: Economy and Cultural Form, the above literal transcription of Crazy Frog best represents the struggle of seriously engaging with a seemingly trivial phenomena. In The Ringtone Dialectic, Gopinath provides a rich and, at times, information-dense examination of the rise and fall of the ringtone. This historical overview, through a theoretical lens of political and labour economy, documents an ephemeral media that has permeated, and continues to permeate social and acoustic landscapes.

The Ringtone Dialectic is organised into four sections: ‘The Rise and Fall of the Ringtone Economy’, ‘Ramifications of the Ringtone's Identify Crisis: The Social and Cultural Fallout of Technological Transformation’, ‘The Ringtone's Dialectical Reversals’ and ‘Revivals and the (Universal) Particularization of the Ringtone’. Within these sections, chapters deal with specific case studies, including: the use of ringtones in international political protests; a history and typology of ringtones; industry structure and economics; and the relationship with popular music, especially North American black urban genres. Gopinath focuses on the heyday of the ringtone, from 1998 to 2010, noting that 2007 was the first year ringtone sales decreased, and declares that in 2013, ‘the ringtone industry is by now undeniably redundant’ (p. 51). While the ringtone grew from a small boutique industry selling monophonic ringtones in the 1990s to a multi-billion dollar polyphonic ringtone industry in the early 2000s before the recording industry came on board to capitalise on sound file ringtones, the industry is ultimately based on the question: ‘How much can you charge people for things that are more or less worthless’ (p. xiv).

The answer, we find, is generally about a dollar, but at the same time Gopinath demonstrates that although the ringtone may be perceived as economically worthless, it was (and is) a culturally rich media, one that has had far-reaching implications in cultural consumption, technology development, and even fashion. For example, in a discussion of consumer nostalgia and ringtone use, as seen in the popularity of using older songs such as the Super Mario Brothers' soundtrack as ringtone, Gopinath infers that the use of nostalgic ringtones in the 2000s ‘may have unwittingly participated in the 1980s fashion revival’ (p. 55), demonstrating the ‘geometry of intergenerational time’ (Fred Davis, p. 55). Gopinath does not directly address the concept of technological determinism, but at times places credence in the potential ability of the ringtone to enact cultural change and possibly reflect racial stereotypes. In a case study of the Crazy Frog ringtone, and the Crazy Frog – Axel F music video in particular, Gopinath interprets the ambiguity of genital organ and lack of phallus of the Frog as the Frog's ability to maintain a ‘degree of childlike innocence in an adult-contrived fantasy of permanent childhood’ (p. 141), while the novelty remake, ‘Ring Ding Ding’ by the Jamaican group LOC in 2005, represents the manifestation of the phallic lack of the original (p. 144).

Gopinath succeeds in bringing such diverse topics of analysis together through recurring themes. Just as the Nokia tune permeated the public consciousness, here it functions to tie together ringtone history, economy and recontextualisation. The Nokia tune represents the early monophonic ringtones, and has also lived on in cultural memory through its use in television series, such as Coupling and The Sopranos, and a piano variations-on-a-theme by Marc-André Hamelin. It represents the minimal labour and skills required to produce monophonic ringtones, but also the creativity that emerged under strict constraints on time, timbre and volume. The Nokia tune struggled to remain relevant as labour and knowledge skills increased to produce the polyphonic ringtone, and accompanying coding techniques. Ultimately, sound files became the industry standard, as users desired increased sound quality and aesthetics, representing a deskilling of labour and a move towards neoliberal models of factory-farmed soundfile editing. Much like the repetitive nature of the ringtone rap that emerged in this time period (Soulja Boy being a prime example), it became all about the hook.

The Ringtone Dialectic fills an ongoing need to document evolving media and technology, in order to increase discourse around phenomena that would most likely otherwise be forgotten. To document not only the ringtone's successes but also its failures, Gopinath engages with the media's non-linear development, while melding thorough research with engaging anecdotes (Martin Plante was the first hotshot ringtone composer!). The ringtone is situated within a theoretical discussion of labour and political economy, ultimately a Marxist reading, with much less focus on sociability, users and personalisation. While The Ringtone Dialectic is a fascinating read, at times it wanders off topic, contributing to a denseness of information that is sometimes overwhelming. In particular, the discussion in Chapter 9 of race and class with regard to mobile use by African-Americans goes beyond ringtones to a more general discussion of mobile technology adoption trends. With this in mind, Gopinath occasionally purports to do more than he delivers, by introducing theoretical concepts and leaving the reader to find the connections between the theory and the historical descriptions. Regardless, the theoretical discussions are well conceived, and provide a rich overview of concepts which are pertinent to the ringtone.

This book would be useful for those with a musicological background, as there are a number of transcriptions, but these can easily be overlooked by readers who do not understand music notation, without losing too much of the author's intent. The Ringtone Dialectic is theoretically rigorous enough to be used in undergraduate or graduate media technology courses, but also generally accessible for the mainstream reader. Gopinath sought, like Blake, to show readers ‘a world in a grain of sand’ (p. xiii) which he ultimately succeeds in doing. This is clearly the definitive ringtone text, and one which will decidedly outlive the reach of its subject matter.