This fifth installment of today's playlist features "THREE1989", a group composed of three members all born in 1989.As I was born in 1991, we are almost the same generation, so I feel a strong sense of closeness when I listen to them.
Recently, I've been intentionally reading novels, and there's a line in a Ryu Murakami work where a character tells a woman, "Music evokes images in your head, like a nostalgic hit from ten years ago. Back then—" and that line has strangely stuck in my mind.
Images evoked by music.
Memories recalled from them, and memories I don't want to remember. Unpleasant experiences from relatively recent times are vividly recalled as images, but it's strange how, after a considerable amount of time has passed and they've been archived within me, even unpleasant memories lose their "unpleasant" recognition and become like a piece of paper that's been printed but will no longer be read.
The members of THREE1989, born in 1989, and I, born in 1991, are all in our early thirties. We navigated the turbulent school life of the Heisei era, finding class breakdowns like those seen in the drama "The Queen's Classroom" not so uncommon. In high school, we were the generation that styled our hair with wax, making it spiky.
The intro to "Asian Funky Ramen" reminds me of the countdown TV jingles I used to watch late at night back when terrestrial broadcasting was exclusively digital and analog TVs were disappearing. It also brings back memories of the early 2000s, when I commuted to school on crowded Seibu Ikebukuro Line trains.
Then, as an adult, I live in my favorite city and have bought my favorite car. Now, driving down the Shuto Expressway Shibuya Line. The area around Shibuya Station, which has transformed into a different city in the Reiwa era, with the Ginza Line running at a height that seems to parallel the expressway, appears in my mind's eye when I listen to "Mona Lisa no Namida" (Mona Lisa's Tears), and when I close my eyes, it projects itself, enveloping my entire body.
WAITER-U Playlist is here.
