Mixed Up: Contemporary Hit Radio is the place where the kids can be kids – times a thousand. It’s Chuck ‘E’ Cheese, The Gap, the candy store, Friday night at Famous Players and the biggest, baddest concert all rolled up into one gnarly audio package of coolness.
Our parents had CHUM, The Beatles, Jay Armstrong and Terry Steele. We had CFTR, New Kids on the Block, Tom Rivers, and Jesse and Gene. The new generation had KISS92.5, Kid Carson, and Tarzan Dan. Top 40 Radio has been a cornerstone to a teenagers’ life since the five boys from England came overseas and stole the hearts of our girlfriends. It was in the background when we were scheming to skip school on Friday so we could line up for concert tickets. It was there when we were buying our first CD at HMV. It sat next to us when we were on our first date. It held our hand during those troublesome teenage years
Top 40 Radio was our Friend.
Real Top 40 Radio has been out of this market for the past few years. Ever since KISS 92 was silenced back in 2003 when the frequency flipped over to the popular JACK format.
Rumours said Toronto’s MIX99.9 will be doing some shacking and tweaking. They fire local morning hero Humble Howard. Not even a week after, they let all the jocks go on summer vacation. They’ll return in a few weeks, they promise.
Or will they?
August 8th marked the new day of the MIX. Now known as “Ninty nine nine Mix-Fm”, instead of “The Mix Ninty Nine Point Nine FM”, the station reunites popular morning combo of Mad Dog and Billie who were formally fronting the KISS morning run. They add in a few more tracks namely of the Top 40 kind. The Urban Top40 kind. Rihanna, Gnarls Barkley and Shakira were some of the new students in the class.
The New Mix has Energy. In your face fuel that’s full of back-to-back music, high power jocks, fast and quirky promos and a good beat to top it all off. Then I saw the new logo.
I lost confidence in the change.
I then realized that people were programming the new station in town that’s supposed to be for the Kids are three times the Kids age. The people who think that Michelle Branch – who they also play – is heavy metal and should go well inside that six in row music sweep. If it was made after ’95, them kids will like it said the directors in the office. The logo gave everything away. MIX is still the processed cheese that Standard hopes the kids will fall for and bit into.
They always experiment on the little mice.
If you build it, they will come. They will listen. But before you open the front gates, make sure that home base isn’t broken.
