Member Berries 2016

It begins. The last month of the first "worst year ever" of the 2010s. Everyone knows 2017 is going to be worse than 2016, right? There's still plenty of living legends who have to die at some point, and most of them are pretty fucking old.

We're possibly changing the name of "Hot Mix 2016" to "Member Berries 2016." We possibly have lost all of our blurb-writing energy, so there will probably be less content than usual. More info coming soon.

Memba 1968? I MEMBA!!
1968: MLK got shot and killed. RFK got shot and killed. And the United States voters chose Richard Milhouse Nixon to be their completely misguided, horrifying leader. And we fucking got through it.

In 1968 and during both of Reagan's presidential campaigns, TV and newspaper journalism was all the world had, blocking voters from hidden issues that came into light years later. In 2016, social media shed light on campaign issues all the same, but the only voters who saw those headlines on their news feeds already agreed. Issues still remained hidden due to artificially tailored news feeds, where a computer determines what we should and shouldn't see, which unfortunately does a horrendously awesome job of spotlighting fake journalism and unchecked online hoaxes.

Threats based on federal cabinet proposals don't always lead to the deterioration of our constitutional liberties. Just because it feels like the fabric of society is in danger doesn't mean we're all completely fucked. Obama is currently our president and has still not requested assisted for the pipeline protesters. It's not gonna get worse. Everything that's shitty is going to stay exactly the same because the president has no actual power as long as profiteering gets in the way. Sure, Trump said that flag burning should be illegal, but unfortunately for his dumbass, any law against proposing penalties for flag burning would be unconstitutional as fuck.

Why Rock Sucks In '16 (It's The Money)
Hey, here's an unpopular opinion that we simply couldn't bring ourselves to post on Twitter:

While there was an abundance of "very good" or even "really great" rock albums in 2016, almost none of them were exceptional or amazing. "Abundance" is a key word there, because an abundantly great year is preferable to ones like 2007/2008 when only 2 or 3 brilliant rock albums would somehow emerge from a relatively bleak musical landscape. The outlook for rock isn't necessarily bleak, but it's definitely been disappointing.

Imagine 1966 without Pet Sounds or Revolver or Blonde On Blonde. Or basically, imagine a great year for rock music where the entire top 20 best rock albums of that year didn't exist, and #21-30 are the new top 10. That's what 2016 felt like. We're saddened to report that none of our favorite rock bands (particularly dude-fronted rock) released their best albums in 2016. Nothing truly excited us. Our top 6 favorite bands from one year ago are exactly the same right now. And it's not like we weren't constantly digging.

What would help?

#1 Commercial radio needs a more refined "new rock" format so that modern rock bands might be encouraged to write less-plodding songs. There's a good reason why iHeartRadio hasn't yet made room for Car Seat Headrest and Parquet Courts.

#2 Music blogging in 2006 cared way more about supporting great bands as opposed to 2016 where good songs seem to matter way less. In order for ad revenue to flourish, weekly posts about Kanye, Drake and Beyonce are now pretty much mandatory.

Norm & Nick
We haven't broken our posts into headlines anytime recently. So here's our final headline: We've been enjoying Norm MAC-Donald's podcasts, and the Nick Swardson episode is possibly our new favorite. Enjoy: