America's Cellphones Are Ringing in the Yuletide With the Best-Selling Seasonal Sounds of Holiday Ringtones from Sony Music Entertainment

America's Cellphones Are Ringing in the Yuletide With the Best-Selling Seasonal Sounds of Holiday Ringtones from Sony Music Entertainment

Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby" Ringtone Achieves RIAA Gold Status 55 Years After Release of Original 1953 Recording

Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" Is Nation's Best-Selling Contemporary Holiday Ringtone For Third Consecutive Year With Cumulative Sales Topping 1.8 Million

NEW YORK, Dec. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- America's cell phones are ringing with the festive sounds of holiday ringtones from Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. Legacy is celebrating the 2008 holiday season with a fantastic variety of timeless holiday classics and innovative new seasonal ringtones.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060130/LEGACYLOGO )

Among the top-sellers in Legacy's 2008 holiday ringtone catalog is Eartha Kitt's sensuous "Santa Baby," which has just been certified gold by the RIAA, in recognition of more than 500,000 ringtones sold, 55 years after Eartha recorded her original version in 1953.

In response to consumer demand for new and innovative holiday ringtones, Legacy has created an exclusive series of Elvis Presley contemporary duet ringtones for 2008 including "Blue Christmas," (Elvis Presley & Martina McBride), "I'll Be Home For Christmas," (Elvis Presley & Carrie Underwood), "Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)," (Elvis Presley & LeAnn Rimes), "Santa Claus Is Back In Town" (Elvis Presley & Wynonna Judd), and "Merry Christmas Baby" (Elvis Presley & Gretchen Wilson).

Other newly available Legacy seasonal ringtone releases for 2008 include holiday recordings by New Kids On the Block, Yo-Yo Ma, Kristin Chenoweth and more.

Currently the nation's #2 ringtone from any genre, Mariah Carey's yuletide classic, "All I Want For Christmas Is You," is topping the holiday ringtone charts for the third year in a row with cumulative sales to-date of more than 1.8 million copies. The best-selling seasonal ringtone of all-time, Mariah's holiday gem became the very first seasonal Mastertone to be awarded an RIAA certification in 2006 and was awarded an RIAA platinum certification last year.

"All I Want For Christmas Is You" was first heard as a key track on Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas album. Originally released in 1994, Merry Christmas has gone on to become one of the top-selling holiday collections of all time, selling more than 11 million copies worldwide while earning 5x platinum certification from the RIAA.

The ongoing impact of Mariah's yuletide perennial has inspired one of this year's hottest new seasonal ringtone releases from Legacy Recordings: a So So Def Remix of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" featuring Jermaine Dupri and Bow Wow.

Rounding out Legacy's list of 2008's top selling yuletide ringtone titles are Elvis Presley's "Blue Christmas" (released as a ringtone for Christmas 2007), Vince Guaraldi's "The Charlie Brown Theme," Jose Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad," Frank Sinatra's "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow" and Eric Cartman's irreverent rendering of "O Holy Night" from "South Park."

About Legacy Recordings

The multiple Grammy-winning Legacy Recordings, Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division, produces and maintains the world's foremost catalog of historic reissues, an unparalleled compendium of thousands of digitally remastered archival titles representing virtually every musical genre including popular, rock, jazz, blues, R&B, hip-hop, folk, country, gospel, Broadway musicals, movie soundtracks, ethnic, world music, classical, comedy and more.

Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060130/LEGACYLOGO
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: Legacy Recordings

CONTACT: Tom Cording of Legacy Recordings, New York, +1-212-833-4448,
Tom.Cording@sonybmg.com

Web Site: http://www.legacyrecordings.com/

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