Marconi plays the Mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember?*
Telecom and recorded music have had a shared history since their very inception. Thomas Edison made the first telephone call on August 10, 1876 and followed that by recording a rocking version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the newly invented phonograph a year later. [Ed note: Yeah, we know, the French can claim a song recorded in 1860 but -- then as now -- who listens to French pop?]
So it figures there are a multitude of songs about telecom, from payphones to BlackBerries.
Click below for ten of the best. As ever, use the message boards to commend us or berate us for our picks. Who knows? We could even do a readers' choice edition.
Figure 1: 10. "Beepers" -- Sir Mix-a-Lot
Original release label: Nastymix Records
— The Staff, Light Reading
*Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City (On Rock 'n' Roll)" never came into consideration for this list, by the way, because we all hate it.