Something Sweeter
Do you remember that staticky period between CD players and phones that could hold your entire music library along with every other aspect of your life? Mp3 players played with shape and color, trying to become more portable and reliable than the discman that could barely fit the width of your palm. I was enchanted with them. Finally, a way to keep my music safe and close by. I wouldn’t have to worry about CDs scratching, the player somehow popping open, cutting my mental peace short with the roar of traffic speeding by, no longer drowned out by the mix I crafted just the night before. I needed an Mp3 player for my sanity.
I was never a flippant or demanding kid. I didn’t expect my parents to know exactly what I wanted nor did I expect them to take “it would make me happy” as a viable reason for why I should have what I requested. I did research. I checked prices, checked specs. I wanted something that was reasonably priced, that would hold my music, and it would be nice if it was small enough to fit in my pocket. When I presented my parents with the one I wanted, they agreed to get it for me. But of course my parents could never resist a reverse-grift. They told me the Mp3 player I wanted was sold out and they weren’t able to get it for me. I accepted this and figured I could wait until after Christmas to find something different that would work for me.
Christmas Day came and I learned that my prankster parents had gotten me the exact Mp3 player I wanted. I wish I could remember what it was called. I know that it was small and square, it fit perfectly in my hand. It had an orange border around the screen and it came preloaded with music I hadn’t heard before. Some songs didn’t do it for me, but there were a few that stood out. One changed me, consumed me, gave me new life. Saturday, Everyday by Tokyo Rose. I was obsessed. I got my hands on their first album, Reinventing a Lost Art, and memorized every word. Over 20 years later and I could perform every vocal with the slightest prompt. I’m not a musician, I never developed that skill. But music was the only thing that lived in my head, that no one could take from me at the end of the day. It stayed in my memory in ways that math and science never could. Tokyo Rose performs a 24 hour gig in a pocket of my brain. I stand before the stage, 17 again and found.
At some point music stopped being a physical asset, it became something you streamed. You didn’t own it, you couldn’t keep it. You were at the whim of data and internet. And Tokyo Rose was gone. I couldn’t find them anywhere online. No social media since MySpace, no Soundclound or Bandcamp, nothing at all. All I had left were my own precious files that I ferried from computer to computer, phone to phone. There was a YouTube channel I could rely on when I wanted to share the band with other people, but it was hard to get even friends invested in something that didn’t exist anywhere but my heart and one miniscule corner of the internet. They were never coming back and it felt like my memory was a ghostlight, fighting to preserve something that no one else cared about.
I don’t know when I stopped searching for signs. I had to stop eventually, right? There’s only so much more a boy could take of this. You swore you’d never leave me all alone.
January 16th, 2026. On Spotify’s release radar there were the usual names— King No-One with Note Boys, Meet Me @ the Altar with Live Without. Good Charlotte, Yellowcard, New Found Glory, names from my peak cringe years that I still loved. And there, on the list. Something Sweeter by Tokyo Rose. They were back.
A new single, all of my favorite songs available to stream and share, and a social media presence. It was a gift from the universe. The new single sounded like home, a place where I belong. I wanted to scream from my roof that there is again hope, that miracles can happen. But someone has to make them happen.
