➡ James Corbett and James Evan Palato, hosts of New World Next Year, discuss their reflections on 2025 and predictions for 2026. They talk about the year’s events, including political changes and conflicts, and how they were often framed as “peace” despite ongoing violence. They also discuss the rise of AI in various fields, including music, and its potential impacts. The hosts emphasize the importance of understanding the true nature of these events and changes, rather than accepting them at face value.
➡ The text discusses the evolution of comedy, music, and artificial intelligence (AI) in 2025. It mentions a controversial song by Kanye West, the rise of AI music, and the murder of a CEO by Luigi Mangione. The text also talks about the potential of AI in creating music and the resurgence of country music. It ends with a look towards the future trends of 2026.
➡ The text discusses predictions for 2026, including potential geopolitical tensions and conflicts, the rise of artificial intelligence in the entertainment industry, and significant anniversaries in the United States and Israel. The author suggests that these events could lead to a ‘storm’ of global changes and challenges. The text also highlights the importance of understanding and interpreting news events in the context of these predictions.
➡ The speaker loves curating news and music for people, acting as a ‘media concierge’. He has been doing this for over 20 years, starting from running his college radio station. He appreciates the support from his audience and offers discounts on his merchandise. He also thanks his team for their hard work and looks forward to continuing his work in the coming year.

Foreign. Ho, ho ho. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Welcome to New world next year 2026. I’m James Corbett at CorbettReport.com and I’m James Evan Palato of MediaMonica.com Merry Christmas to all of you. This is our special year end show. The the big difference is we dress up a little bit and we don’t know what the other one are going to talk about. Usually always on your New World. Next week we’ve got our three stories. We know what we’re going to talk about. We know where the points are. And we’ve been doing this for 15 and almost years.

This is the only episode of the year where we do not know what the other is going to talk about. And for probably about the last decade, our New world next year 2026 episode. We look at the year past and we make a trend prediction for the upcoming year. And we usually take turns and James, I’m going trust that I went first last year. So you go first this year, man. What was your story of 2025? Good question. Well, in casting about for a story of the year, there are many possibilities that present themselves. And here’s one that I know that you will appreciate, James.

Here in Japan, every year there’s an association that chooses the Japanese character of the year to describe the year. And this year’s character was the character for bear. So that tells you something about the, the situation here in Japan. But I cast my net a little bit more broadly than that. So I decided on a different word that I think encapsulates the the word of the year. And people who are Corporate Report subscribers who watched my recent Subscriber exclusive video will have seen that me and Sean picked a, a Japanese character for our character of the year.

Mine was a bit of a cheat. I used the two characters heiwa, which, which means peace, but not peace. It’s peace in quotation marks. Because my story of the year is the peace before the storm. So what do I mean by that? Okay, well, we could go back right to the beginning of the year and the Trump and change revolution that took place there in the United States. For Secretary Pete Hegsetts, formerly Secretary of Defense, now Secretary of War, his first message to the force of this year where he said, quote, the president gave us a clear mission, achieve peace through strength.

Which led to this bizarre thing where even Carolyn Levitt and other Trump minions were trying to claim that Trump had invented that phrase, peace through strength. No, I’ve been hearing that my whole life. I don’t know what you guys are talking about. For those who want, there is a fact checker article about it. Peace through strength. The origin of the phrase used by the Trump administration that points out it goes back to at least the 1960s. So yeah, no, Trump did not invent that phrase. But yeah, peace through strength. In other words, the Orwellian version of peace.

And I think that’s what I’m getting at with my choosing peace before the storm. So what, what does that look like? Peace in Gaza. We got peace in Gaza, guys. The genocide’s over. But not really. We have this headline, for example, Israel has killed 339 Palestinians in Gaza in ceasefire violations according to the health Ministry. And that was last month’s numbers. Who knows what they are now? And of course, the worst joke ever, one that we covered here on New World Next week, Trump’s son in law to help run Gaza with Tony Blair. Yay. Wonderful. But don’t worry, guys, Blair won’t be on the board of this board of peace.

He’s going to be on the executive board underneath that board. So don’t worry, guys, he’s been dropped from the big boy’s chair. Of course he’ll actually be running it, so it’s probably even worse anyway. Well, peace in Gaza, not quite peace in Ukraine. Right. We got, I mean, Trump said he was going to have this all solved in 24 hours. It took a little bit longer than that. But we got the 28 point peace plan, right? Yeah. Except of course, now, of course, Zelensky definitively shuts the door on Trump. Peace plan won’t cede territory Putin says ready for war against Europe if attacks on Russian tankers and energy continue.

Russia rapidly gaining territory in Ukraine ahead of Downing Street Summit, etc. Etc. Obviously, we have seen nothing approaching peace in Ukraine and it seems like we’re not on the verge of it either. So what else? Oh yeah, we had the Peace Prize going to Machado this year. Right. For bringing peace or at least asking for peace. Love bombs to rain down on Venezuela. If you don’t know about that story, you might want to see my earlier podcast from, from this year. The Nobel War Prize strikes again. And oh, by the way, it just so happens that the giving of that Peace prize to the warmonger Machado actually literally breaks Sweden’s own laws.

But that’s a side note. I’ll throw the link into the gray zone story covering that. But hey, guys, Trump may not have won the Peace Prize directly, but he won it indirectly. He won the consolation Prize President Trump wins Inaugural FIFA Peace Prize. Remember that from last month? Just nonsense. So yeah, there’s a lot of peace to go around, but of course it isn’t peace. And we know that there is. There’s trouble everywhere around the world right now. And perhaps the best reflection of it as, as I said, we went into this this year with the US at least claiming, at least pretending it was a Department of Defense, but now they are spending $2 billion to rename the Department of War.

So that I think that is the, the type of piece that I’m talking about this year. I think it’s a return to some bit of truth in advertising. It was originally the Department of War. That’s if there’s anything to like about the Trump era, is that it really, it becomes a more, it becomes a more truthful empire. James I think Carlin makes a joke about peace without or with honor, something about that. And so yeah, Italy obviously goes back to the 60s and 70s that same and did you catch Hegseth’s weird AI message? Make AI your friend.

It’ll be in your battle. Like make it a part of your daily thing. Pretty strange. And he says, godspeed. So that actually helps me lead into my story of 2025. At first I’d have to say I think I, I nailed my 2025 prediction media monarchy turned 20 years old and it is still the best radio show around. And you know, I always bring the high strangeness for my story of 2025. Brock asked me a couple days ago, you know, we always have our rolling message about how to plan and work on all these episodes. Brock asked if there’s hey man, can you give me some ideas about what your story of the year might be so he can start collecting the assets to build the video that you are now watching.

And all I could say in the moment was AI Music is awesome. And I think that’s my title since stand up comedy and punk rock killed each other in a murder suicide pact about nine years ago. AI music is awesome. It never told me to vote or what medicine I need to take to go see him in an overpriced concert. It doesn’t sell me bad religion Covid masks. I almost wish I would have bought some of those just to have them for, you know, the era. To clarify then, I think we’ve said this on this, on this show before.

I don’t need to hang out with AI or ask it questions or act like it’s my friend, father figure, confessor. But it’s been fantastic all this year. Plus it doesn’t go to Saudi Arabia for a paycheck while acting like it’s speaking truth to power as a court jester. It just speaks and nothing can really stop it. I’ve already started, Joe. Like, oh, that wasn’t. I didn’t say that. Ish. That was AI. That wasn’t me. Almost Vinyl is maybe my favorite band of the year. AI comedy songs. But they’re not cover songs, they’re satire. It’s not parody.

You know, parody is like snl, easy bull plop for TV people. Satire is harder, but can be more rewarding. Almost Vinyl has basically built a roster of artists. They write backstories and plots and all the liner notes for the singles and talk about the producers and have studio anecdotes all fake, all completely made up. Almost Vinyl. The forgotten hits of the past, present and future back again via AI. It’s almost good. It’s almost music. It’s almost vinyl. They have songs like Marty Waterhouse’s Waffle House Gunfight. He’s like the Marty Robbins kind of old cowboy character. Booker Sharp’s what does the Mofo gotta do to make it in this world? It’s like Marvin Fake and gay.

They are often filled, filled with swears because that’s what you do when you’re playing with it. Hey, can we make this say boobs? Other hit songs like I Think My Cat wants to Kill Me, Jesus is never coming back because you won’t stop touching yourself on Halloween. They put up a song called Talking Ish to ghosts. Comedy has to, I think, sort of continually push things forward and find where that line is and step over it. And it seems like the Bill Burrs of the world weren’t really doing that anymore. So now this kind of has, and we’ve said for 20 years here, randos on the Internet are funnier, faster and sharper than any multi million dollar writers room filled with a bunch of Ivy League agendas.

And there is a biggie kind of wedged right into the middle of all of this. The year that was the Kanye show, AKA Ye. He made a song you may have heard about called Heil Hitler. And besides it being hated and scorned, rightfully so, it was immediately as many things are just sort of sucked up into this world and parodied into something better. The big band version, the classical version, the Motown version, the super racist Chinese version. Then Kanye said he was done with Nazism and he put out a new version and called it Ninja Hallelujah.

So that was kind of strange. So that might also be a little bit of the honorable mention. Barry Lead story of the year to they call it the Great Noticing Luigi. The great noticing. And AI music is awesome. Those are kind of my three biggies of 2025 and the Luigi story. Luigi Mangione murdered Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare over a year ago. That was how we were wrapping up 2024. It’s fascinating because Luigi is the spoiled rich kid he hated Brian for becoming after Brian worked his butt off. He grew up on a farm. Yes, health scare is a giant scam, but that dude worked his way up on a farm.

He was not a rich urban Nepo baby like Luigi, but still crowdfunded assassinations. Fascinating. But back to my artificial instrumentals. What do I say? They steal the real and sell you back the fake. There’s another channel called hard archive on YouTube as well. They mostly only do racist stuff like I feel like saying N Word tonight and Robert Zimmerman’s Zionist ode. Everybody must be stoned. But when you’re always just kind of at 11 with that, there’s no really where else to go. Hard Archive Waking up at the crack of noon to cook up hilarious tunes. I have said on air all year, if I was a Bilderberger Spotify baby buying orb staring AI guy, I would roll out a roster of AI bands like it was a season of TV shows or a line of comic books and be like, hey, these are fake computer bands.

But we think the songs are pretty sweet. And you might too recall the movie Simone, a fake CGI pop star controlled by Al Pacino. We watched F for Fake in the Monarchy the other night as part of my year long Orson Welles deep dive. You know, huge Orson Welles fan and student. It’s all about art and hoaxes and forgeries and fakes. Today what we we would call it nft. NFT for Fake. I hear what you’re saying. I hear what you’re saying. But Top Jimmy Surely AI couldn’t replicate the artistic genius of Pollock or Rothko or the Asian aping ultra violence of Quentin Wu Tang Weinstein Tino.

But maybe it can. It gets better. There’s a Monarchy member that started making AI songs on a platform called Sunno, which was already a drone metal band. I’ve had a joke, astute take on news media. I could hit up Horace. That’s his handle in the media Monarchy Kingdom. Marty and he can make it happen. Cassbot and I riffing about what would a what would an anarchist like barbershop quartet be? And because I knew of the group Rockapella. I was like, boom. Anarchapella. Bam. Rad ass song lands in my lap. Anarchapella’s the Invisible Hand harmony. I’ll include the links to all of these songs I’m talking about.

And then we just kept making more door slam. What about Maxine Waters trying to get into the ICE facility without a proper appointment? Grow coffee in dead malls. That is one of my ideas about America. Isolationism, Growing hydroponic organic coffee in dead malls so we don’t have to import it. Let’s get re narded in here for my gnarly Thursday shows. And the topper maybe don’t hate the media. Become the media. From West Virginia hills to Portland rain. It was like my instant distant theme song. It’s all it’s gonna be on my best of the year. It’s basically my career story.

And it is strangely touching when the narratives controlled by fear stream the truth from your new hexaco frontier. Brought to you by you, my dear. And again, it’s. This isn’t something. AI just spits it out like a can of soda. Almost vinyl hard archive. Horace. They all write all the lyrics. You write the entire song. You’re not. Oh, AI come up with some funny words for me. You feed it all of that stuff first and then you tell it what style and you adjust all that stuff. Late 70s temptation soul. Not disco, but kind of like the Miracles if they were Marvin X.

We kind of went deep on this and trying to figure out sort of how this magic trick was done with the other media mavens in the monarchy. Hey, and plus they won’t have overpriced garbage concerts. I have to be magajabbed for you. I’m exaggerating. I love that some of my favorite real world bands with real people made improbable new albums this year. Pulp, Stereo Lab, Tortoise, Sloan, Cheap Trick, Suede, and that’s always. I’ll just wrap it up that way. My Best of 2025 Mega Music Video show is this Saturday. Again, Media Monarchy is the best damn radio station you never heard.

AI music is hilariously awesome and is at least as far as 2025 goes. James is going to be a part of that. It already is a part of it. Because as we know, AI bands and artists are now topping various Billboard charts, et cetera. So it’s happening whether people know it or not, or whether they care or not, whether they like it or not. So yeah, it is absolutely an important story this year. And you know what Occurs to me when you’re laying that out is what was punk back in the day, back in the 70s, when it was kicking off, what was it? It was a giant middle finger to the institution and the musical establishment, everything surrounding it, the industry as it existed.

It was a. We don’t even need to. We don’t need to learn more than three chords. We’re just going to play this loud and. And we’re going to celebrate it. And in a way, I guess this is a sort of extension of that revolution, as in a big middle finger to all the establishment and the industry and all of the million dollar pop production garbage. We don’t need that. We can just type it up on our computers in a few seconds. We don’t need you anymore. So I appreciate that spirit. However, I will still. I’m still on team humanity and I’m still waiting for the.

I think the real revolution is when people say, screw all this technological garbage. We do not need your computers and sitting in our rooms. We’re going to go and make real music with real instruments in the real world and it’s going to have nothing to do with your music industry as it’s become. But I’ll hold my breath on that revolution and we’ll see if I. If I make it. I honestly think that’s why the resurgence the last several years in country music. Not just because of Trump at all, but it’s because there’s humans playing instruments passionately together live.

They did the Country Music Awards on TV CMA’s a couple weeks ago. It was fantastic. I was messaging with my mom. She’s like, this doesn’t really seem like country. She said about one of the bands. It was like, I think that’s what happened. It’s almost like country is the new rock. And that’s why of course they’ve all come for it and it’s all being sort of exploited and blown up, as is always going to happen to anything real that starts up the. The system that of course can’t create that kind of stuff itself. It needs that.

So of course it’s going to come to it and it’s probably going to infect and it’s probably going to ruin it for a little while and then it’ll fall apart and then it’ll revive and turn into something else. And that is the way it keeps going on and on. Yeah, three chords. In the truth, I believe somebody made some reference to James. So I throw it back to you now and we are going to put on our prestidation hats and look into the future for our. Not again. These aren’t predictions of. I’m saying that on March 3rd this building is going to blow or anything.

Like we make sure to use the word trend. We’re going to see what these sort of trends. And what do you see for 2026? James, good question. And you mentioned Luigi Mangione. You might or might not remember my prediction for 2025 was this is how they do it. Talking about the Luigi killing and what if that was to become something this year? What if there was a high profile assassination or something along those lines? Was my prediction trend for 2025. And so I was dutifully keeping track of all the Manion stories that were going through the news wires all year and I was going to assemble it and go see, you know, it did kind of come true.

And then Charlie Kirk happened and I thought, well okay, there it is. Okay, so that’s, you know, that set the horrible precedent for going forward. And I hope that that really isn’t going to be a trend going forward. But anyway, that was one grizzly prediction that I did make, one that I could make. I mean, hey, now that you’re talking about the AI music change that has occurred this year, well, now I’m thinking, well a good Safe bet for 2026 is it’s coming for the movie industry next and TV and all that. But. But I don’t have to go so far out on a limb or think too much about this.

If my story of the year was the peace before the storm, then clearly the trend for next year is the storm. So my horbit trend for 2026, the storm. What do I mean by that? Well, as I say, we’ve got all this fake peace all over the place, but it’s not really peace and there’s problems all over the world and that’s reflected in this crazy geopolitical situation that we’re in. For example, is NATO breaking up from Global Research ca talking about the, the fissures that are happening in NATO between US and Europe and within Europe itself and different takes and things.

Yeah, well, NATO as we have known it may be breaking up. I’m not thinking the world empire is breaking up, but maybe there’s just going to be a reconfiguring. But anyway, some big moves there. We have this story. Russia, China agree to thwart efforts to revive Japanese militarism. So I don’t know if people on that side of the Pacific have been keeping track of it. But over here it’s been a big story about the various interesting incidents that are now taking place seemingly on a weekly basis between Japan and China and target locks on fighter jets and other such things that bring us closer and closer to the brink of some sort of outright warfare.

There’s this story. A return to nuclear testing looks inevitable. Here’s how to manage it. Well, thank you, msm. I. That’s what I want to know. How do we manage nuclear testing since it is inevitable now. Or how about this one? New York Times editorial board urges us to prepare for future war with China. Well, there it is. I’ve been talking about this for years and years and years now. I think it’s clearly US versus China is going to be the big US versus USSR of the 21st century. And obviously Russia is involved in that, Iran’s involved in that.

There’s all these different pieces on the table, but I think that’s going to be the centerpiece. So I think 2026, I hope it isn’t, but it could be the year of the storm. However, I’m not going to go out and say absolute all out World War 3, hot war between superpowers quite yet. I think that’s 2027. But for 2026 we’re definitely going to start seeing all of the pieces being put in place for that 2027 or later event. And I think we’re going to definitely notice that the storm is here once it starts to hit. Isn’t it interesting? I actually, I have a pretty brief 2026 trend prediction as well, James.

And I want to clarify actually, because you mentioned the AI songs sort of sneaking their way onto the charts. I’m into the ones that tell you right out the gate, this is a, this is a joke. We are making funny, funny jokes because it seems pretty disingenuous. I don’t know, it seems a lot weirder for the ones to try and sneak it through and ha ha ha, you didn’t know. I gotcha. Yeah, I don’t really, I don’t like that part about it. My Trend prediction for 2026, maybe kind of echoing my trend prediction for this year, is something I know is gonna happen.

But I’m calling it the US Real pre tribulational, semi quincentennial. Say it with me. It is fun to say. United States semi quincentennial will be the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence Festivities will mark various events leading up to the Declaration’s anniversary on the 250th Independence Day, July 4, 2026 Official planning for the celebrations began in 2016 with the congressional nonpartisan United States Semiquincentennial Commission. This year, President Donald Trump created the White House Task Force on celebrating America’s 250th birthday to also promote and plan events. So all I would basically say is I would read every seemingly staged news event through as maybe you’ll always do.

Anyway, watchers of New World next week through a synchro mystic lens. I mean it’s gonna be jingoism, patriotism, nationalism of the highest order. But with all the dinosaur media and Civil War movies, they’ve been ginning up a lot of division lately and does kind of feel like both fake sides have gone insane. It seems like everybody’s on SSRIs and smartphones and it’s become really easy to despise everybody. All part of the show, folks. International Cokes and Pepsi’s all fight about how the other’s bad for doing what they do, but when they do it again, it isn’t bad.

Now I had a guy tell me back when I was first started doing media monarchy 911 truth radio show in 2006. He agreed knew all about so called conspiracies but what he said then always stuck with me. He said I’d save my breath until you were underwater. Meaning nobody’s gonna listen to you and it’s not gonna matter until maybe everything gets gets hot. So it’s USA 250 and what maybe also the this is. This is the part that all ties in the beginning of the end of the state of Israel. The bible that they give us without the giants and the super psychedelic freakouts and stuff says nations will turn away from Israel.

I’ve always heard this. I grew up in the church, I grew up in the Satanic panic and I grew up with the Rapture. Nations will turn away from Israel. But I think we’re seeing exactly why right now every single day. Again this is, this is bigly on the end times and I think Zionists trick Christians into supporting a lot of this. I don’t feel like the Rapture was ever really around. It’s something that kind of showed up in the last 100, 200 years by Darby and Schofield. And it kind of all seems like a trick that’s a little bit far afield.

But that’s really what I have for my 2026 trend prediction. I would also argue, as you just said, it’s already happening. We’re already soaking in it. Match and it’s going to go all the way through 2026. So just try to think of like these sort of sink events, like with Boston Harbors and taxes, of course, and maybe new declarations of dependence and such. And hell, maybe we’ll all have a come together moment where Cokes and Pepsis and Magas and trans atheist fetuses will all do a income tax revolt. I’m calling it the Israel Pre Tribulational Semiquincentennial.

James, get ready to party. Just don’t make me say that three times in a row very fast. But yeah, good call. I had forgotten it was the 250th coming up this year. I am assuming Trump is going to have some kind of party planned. I don’t know. I mean, it’s going to be over. The, it’s going to be over. It’s going to be crazy anyway. All right, cool. Well, that is quite the trend. And I, you know, I think there’s a lot of overlap with what we’re saying here. You know what sticks out with me though is that I take, I have the exact opposite take on the breathe.

Hold your breath until you’re underwater. No, no, no, you got to scream and shout and make a noise before you go underwater because once you’re underwater, ain’t nobody going to hear you. You’re going to be drowning. So I have the opposite take and I, I feel that, I feel we may be underwater at this point because I feel that it’s getting harder and harder to reach people with new information at this point. So, you know, I think the time for spreading Johnny Appleseed about 911 truth was 20 years ago in the time for holding your fire for when people are ready to listen.

Maybe you know, at the time we’re at. But anyway, yeah, it’s clearly going to be a huge year in a lot of different ways. And I think we both touched on different aspects of the same thing. So that is as far as the canon of New World Next week goes. That is episode 613, but we call it new world next year 2026. And just like normal, I always get to play the exclusive audio of these New World Next week episodes on my Thursday morning show@mediamonakey.com Listen again, it’s not for everybody but if you are a fan of passionate old school radio again, I got letters back at I used to run my college radio station.

I got letters there from people 16 to 60 years old. Me like this station sounds amazing. Now it’s my main favorite thing I love to do. I love to curate news and music for people and get them the media and the things that they like. James I’ve joked before about trying to be some sort of media concierge, but I don’t know if there’s any call for that anymore in this day and age or there’s never been a bigger call because there’s never been a bigger pile of mess for people to go through. But if you tell me, hey, I kind of like this and that, I’d be like, man, you gotta check this out.

So if you like to check it out, come check it out@mediamonarchy.com I again have been doing it for over 20 years. I started out doing the morning announcements in high school. I ran my college radio station. I got a big mouth, I got lots of breath, but I got lots to share and lots to give. So that’s it, James. New world next year 2026 buddy. Awesome. Thank you for another year at all of this. And thank you to all the people who are out there supporting this work. Again, we couldn’t do it without you guys. So newworldnextweek.com is the store if you want to buy our merch, our swag, our DVDs, our USB sticks, our digital downloads.

It’s all there. And I’ll just take this opportunity to remind people that for at least the next few days, if you’re watching this as it’s being posted up until Christmas Day, you can use Christmas 25 c h r I s t m a s 25 at checkout to get 25% off any Corbit media, DVDs, USB digital downloads, not the swag. And subscribers, of course, can always get 50% off during this Christmas drive. And if you want to know how to do that, it’s at the bottom of the latest newsletter. Or you can get in touch with me if you don’t know how to do that.

The other thing I’d like to say is reportagebook.com the audiobook is now available for purchase. You can purchase it directly from reportagebook.com it’s on is populating out to the various audiobook seller sites as well. So appreciate your support that way too. And thank you James, for doing what you do. Thanks to Brock, obviously, for putting this together, editing it. Thanks to Cassie for keeping the store running. Thanks to Sean behind the banner here for all the work that he does administratively behind the scenes. There’s a lot of thanks to go around because obviously this is much bigger than just the two of us.

Absolutely. And Cassie sends her love and best to all of y’ all who help again make all of this happen. James, merry Christmas. I love you, man. It is a pleasure getting to work with you year after year and I guess I’ll see you. I was just trying to do the quick math in my head. I’ll see you in our 17th calendar year of New World next week in 2026. I am feeling older by the day. Thank you. That’s why. That’s why, you know, that’s why you got to put your punk rock vest on and try and hopefully have some fun and laugh in the face of the new world order.

James, I love you, man. Thanks. Yeah. Merry Christmas. I love you. I send my love to Cassie. Thank you guys for doing what you do and let’s do it again next year. Yep. Take care. Take care. Sam.
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