They gave us quite an earful

The bell you hear tolling isn’t your phone. It’s the death knell of the music business as we know it, a clang that pealed just this month when Billboard gave out the very first honors recognizing the year’s top ring tone.

The award went to the telephonic rendition of Chingy’s “In Da Club,” if you care about such things.

But having seen the writing on the wall, or hearing the ringing on our phones, we would like to announce that this very column will soon be available as a ring tone. You gotta go where the business is.

With that in mind we’re exploring various other options, such as placing the column on a video game soundtrack, licensing it for a Target commercial, releasing it as a live DVD and preloading it in a special-edition iPod.

Oh, and we’ve changed the name of this column to Esther.

The thing is, this edition of Pop Eye annually recognizes music business doers of deeds of dubious distinction. But it’s hard to top an award more dubious than one for the year’s top ring tone.

On the other hand, we’re a little reluctant to officially declare a, uh, winner quite yet. After all, there are still nearly two weeks in which Britney Spears could make it two weddings and two annulments all in one calendar year.

Barring that, though, we’ll give it not just to Billboard, but to each and every one who actually paid for the Chingy ringy dingy thingy.

How many of you paid to own the actual song?

Meanwhile, if you catch any editorial malfunctions here, just chalk it up to acid reflux.

Some other things from 2004 that are still ringing in our ears:

The Burning Ring of Bad Taste

Some ideas should probably never be expressed out loud -- like a proposal to the family of the late Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash to use one of Johnny’s hits in a TV commercial. The request was from a pharmaceutical company that wanted to use the song “Ring of Fire” -- co-written by June and sung by Johnny -- for a hemorrhoid-relief product.

The idea was initially presented to Merle Kilgore, who co-wrote the song with June. Kilgore thought it was funny.

And what did the Cash family think?

“He [Merle] started talking about this moronic tie-in without talking to any of us,” Cash daughter Rosanne Cash told the Nashville Tennessean. “The song is about the transformative power of love and that’s what it has always meant to me and that’s what it will always mean to the Cash children.”

At Least He Was Fully Clothed

Kid Rock may owe Janet Jackson a huge thank you. If not for her Super Bowl halftime-show wardrobe malfunction, it might have been his wardrobe issues getting the headlines.

Odds are you don’t even remember that for his performance, the rap-rocker wore an American flag that had been turned into a poncho with a slit cut in the middle for his head. Midsong he whipped the flag off and tossed it into the crowd surrounding the stage.

It didn’t bring any fines from the Federal Communications Commission. But it did draw some ire from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, whose commander in chief, Edward S. Banas Sr., labeled the Kid’s fashion choice “in poor taste and extremely disrespectful.”

Would You Like Bat Sauce on That?

A Woodbridge, N.J., ice cream parlor contacted Sharon Osbourne asking permission to create a new flavor in her honor -- and not only did she agree, but she asked that one be done for hubby Ozzy as well. So the Country Cow Creamery started serving Ozzy’s Carnivorous Carrot Cake (cinnamon spice ice cream with carrot cake soaked in hazelnut liqueur) and Death by Sharon (dark chocolate ice cream with chocolate fudge and brownie pieces soaked in Godiva liqueur).

Not sure which is more questionable: the use of booze in a flavor for Ozzy, given his history with substance abuse, or the notion of carrot cake as a desirable treat. But we’d love a couple of scoops of Sharon’s concoction, please.

The Dog Ate Her Microphone

Ashlee Simpson had more rationales for her “Saturday Night Live” lip-sync fiasco than the Bush administration had for going to war. First she told the audience that her band was playing the wrong song, next she blamed her drummer for starting the wrong backing track, her record company called it a computer glitch and then there was, of course, acid reflux.

To her credit, though, she did later apologize for pointing fingers at others and took the blame herself, citing a need to mask vocal problems due to the stress of heavy touring and promotional activities.

She never did, however, apologize for her SNL dance moves.

This Could Really Cause Acid Reflux

The preshow buffet at an Alice Cooper concert is a little odd, given that part of the entourage is Cooper’s 8-foot albino python, also named Alice and featured prominently in the performance. But it was the dessert that almost did in the snake before an August concert in Connecticut. After devouring a live rat, as planned, Alice (the snake) ingested a heating pad -- along with its electrical cords -- that had been left in the cage by mistake.

According to reports, an “at-risk-snake helper” was called in (yes, apparently there is such a thing as an “at-risk-snake helper”) and Alice -- the snake -- was rushed to a nearby veterinarian, who sedated, X-rayed and then operated, performing the heating-padectomy just in time to prevent potentially fatal damage.

The show went on, thanks to the snake helper, who let Cooper borrow a yellow anaconda for the night.

Alice the snake pulled through fine.

There was no report on how Alice the rock star fared.

He’s a Crotchet(ty) Man

Elton John was so cranky this year you’d have thought he had swallowed a heating pad. First, when greeted by reporters upon landing in Taipei, he loudly called them “rude, vile pigs” and then spouted about Madonna’s alleged lip-syncing after Esther was nominated by Britain’s Q magazine for an award as best live act. (She lost to Muse.) And now he’s incurred George Michael’s wrath over comments concerning Michael’s personal life.

Perhaps John should invoke the excuse given for rude behavior by U.K. homemaker Helen Omar who, after being arrested for verbally and physically assaulting two security guards, said that it was the result of being hypnotized and told to act like Madonna.

Or maybe Ashlee Simpson has some unused excuses he could have borrowed.

How About Jethrina Tull?

After more than 30 years as a band, Jethro Tull retroactively got its first female member -- more than 20 years after that member left the band. David Palmer, who had been the keyboard player in the group in the ‘70s and ‘80s, called leader Ian Anderson recently to tell him that he is now a she, answering to the name Dee.

How Soon We Forget

It wasn’t that long ago that the Spice Girls were among the most recognizable names in the world, was it?

Well, poor Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham, who was relegated to anonymity in a headline on a wire story last summer that noted, “David Beckham, Wife Expecting Third Child.”