Gen Hoshino feat. Superorganism -- Same Thing

One of the acts that I did catch on the live broadcast of the Kohaku Utagassen this morning, and by the way...Happy New Year to everyone in Japan, is singer-songwriter Gen Hoshino（星野源）who's been appearing frequently enough on the New Year's Eve special that he even has his own segment while dressed as a Sazae-san clone.

This time, though, he sang his song at the top of Shibuya's newest mammoth structure, Shibuya Scramble Square, which has a breathtaking view of one of Tokyo's most famous neighbourhoods. The last time I was in Tokyo was in 2017 so maybe even the shovels weren't in the ground at that time, but that's obviously not the case now.

The other notable thing is that Hoshino didn't perform a variant of the happy and quirky tunes that I've associated him with, such as "Koi"（恋）from a few years back. Actually, it was something more along the lines of indies pop with the help of English band Superorganism. With their cooperation, Hoshino came up with a digital download EP released in October called "Same Thing".

In a different way, "Same Thing" is another catchy one for Hoshino, and the lyrics are all in English so looking at them while he's singing away at the top of the Scramble, I appreciated his shoutout to the good folks in "Lost In Translation", and even the swearing like an elementary school student. Ah, actually, Hoshino provided a more PG version of the song here (after all, this is an NHK family special), compared to the original swarthier version. "Same Thing" hit No. 1 on the charts.