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99% Invisible

All Rings Considered

Aug 28, 2019 · 36 min · Episode 368 · 35.6 MB
0:00-36:54

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Before we turned our phones to silent or vibrate, there was a time when everyone had ringtones -- when the song your phone played really said something about you. These simple, 15 second melodies were disposable, yet highly personal trinkets. They started with monophonic bleeps and bloops and eventually became actual clips of real songs. And it was all thanks to a man named Vesku-Matti Paananen.

All Rings Considered

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