Click on the covers of the various entries to read a short blurb about my first listen.

Cover

Title

Artist

Listen Date

Link

PARASOCIAL

TONE
ft. Kagamine Rin

May 11, 2026

【YouTube】
【Spotify】

Harness Your Hopes - B-side

Pavement

May 16, 2026

【YouTube】
【Soundcloud】
【Spotify】

PARASOCIAL — TONE feat. Kagamine Rin

I listened to this one whilst sick, I wasn't bedridden per se but it was definitely uncomfortable to move. As my headache pounded I saw this song in my YouTube recommendations on the heels of a video essay about the original Pokémon games.
I have a tendency to put many of the things I watch in playlists, and this one happened to’ve been in my Watch Later and I'd forgotten.
My first impressions were positive, and I gandered over at the lyrics I could barely make out due to my glasses not being on.
I resonated with it a lot, and I pushed some of my own experiences onto the words. I do that for a lot of things—relation being one of the most powerful pacifiers I've ever known. Of course, it wasn't my creation, and thus wasn't 1:1 to myself.
Somethings else it reminded me of was A Girl on the Shore by Inio Asano. That book is a whole other beast, and worthy of a reread so I can talk about it here. I can’t exactly say why I was reminded of it.
In my eyes there was a longing about the song. I initially thought I'd describe it as upbeat, but in truth I felt a sense of dissatisfaction. Admittedly, I know very little about music, but I want to say the bass line is the cause of this. The drums and vocals feel like they're fighting to catch up with the rhythm, and I think the lyrics fit that description.
In going to check the lyrics properly on my phone I noticed a comment made by @yumeiyume saying, "born to be 10 years ago forced to be seven hours ago." I think thats a beautiful way of putting how behind you feel. Perhaps I was reminded of A Girl on the Shore because I was reminded of childhood, and feeling behind.

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Harness Your Hopes - B-side — Pavement

I found this one during a rare moment of me opening TikTok—a girl lip syncing to the song ended up on my for you page—here we are.
This song has a vibe I know and yet can't put my finger on. It definitely feels like one of those songs that could easily be placed onto one of those ridiculous Ryan Gosling sadboy edits; this one feels more Front Bottomsesque to me though. A bit of Your City Gave Me Asthma and weirdly Devil's Train by Lab Rats. No idea where that came from.
Placing the age of this song is also quite funny to me, as it felt like something distinctly 1990's or 2020's. A testament to how rooted our culture is in nostalgia these days, maybe. I know I'm definitely a perpetrator of such a phenomenon...
The line that confused me most though was, "And the freaks have stormed the White House". Which to be fair is a line with modern day relevance, and probably would've been considered a more out there idea in 1996 when this song was released.
Y'know there are some You Are Something True vibes in there too... I think I'll end it here before I go crazy making comparisons.

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