Create (song)

is a song by Japanese singer-songwriter and musician Gen Hoshino from his fifth studio album, '' Gen'' (2025). The theme song to the 35th anniversary of the Nintendo video game ''Super Mario Bros.'' (1985), the song first appeared in a June 2020 commercial. Speedstar Records released it as a digital single on February 17, 2021, before a physical double A-sided CD with " Fushigi" was issued on June 23, 2021. Inspired by Nintendo's creative philosophy, Hoshino wrote and produced the track, and co-arranged it with Mabanua. A J-pop, soul, and chiptune song, the lyrics sees Hoshino encouraging listeners to create. It features several references to Nintendo, such as the start-up jingle to their GameCube console, sound effects from ''Super Mario Bros.'', and homages to the company's history.

Critics thought that "Create" showed respect for Nintendo; they also commented on its J-pop composition and Hoshino's lyricism. The song reached number 7 on the ''Billboard Japan'' Hot 100, number 10 on the Oricon Combined Singles Chart, and number 94 on the ''Bilboard'' Global Excl. US. The double A-sided single received a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of Japan.

directed the music video for "Create" using camera methods that included an iPhone and 8mm film. The video sees Hoshino singing and moving around; its editing and Hoshino's movements interact with the references to Nintendo in the song's lyrics and composition. He performed the song during his online concert Enkai in March 2021, which was recorded and released on a DVD/Blu-ray with a limited edition of "Fushigi" / "Create".

Background and release

From his time with the instrumental band Sakerock (2005–15), Japanese singer-songwriter and musician Gen Hoshino composed all of his songs using the guitar and, by his own admission, only knew how to play piano with his pointer finger. However, exclusively using guitar made it difficult for Hoshino to create music inspired by the jazz his parents listened to when he was young; he also believed it created habits that made his songs less distinguishable from each other. When most of his plans for 2020 were postponed or canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he found time in self-quarantining to practice using digital audio workstations (DAWs) and keyboards, aided by producer and drummer Mabanua, who gave him a lecture on digital music composition over a phone call. Using DAWs, Hoshino produced and recorded from his home the entirety of the song " Halfway", which was released as a single on June 19, 2020.

On June 4, 2020, video game company Nintendo began airing a commercial for the 35th anniversary of ''Super Mario Bros.'' (1985). The commercial, directed by , featured Hoshino performing his new song, "Create", on guitar, marimba, and drums in a recording studio. Several outlets later called it the theme song to the anniversary celebrations. On February 12, 2021, Hoshino announced that "Create" would be released as a single and posted a teaser from its music video. Speedstar Records, a label under Victor Entertainment, released the song five days later for download and streaming.

A double A-sided single containing "Create", Hoshino's next song " Fushigi", and two B-sides, was released to physical formats on June 23, 2021. Limited editions, titled and , came with Blu-ray/DVDs of Hoshino's online concerts of the same names. As part of both "Create" and the double A-side's promotion, Victor held give-away raffles for stickers based on their respective cover art. Alongside the physical edition of "Fushigi" / "Create", users who downloaded the single on Line Music were awarded stamps for use in Line Messenger depicting Hoshino and his alter ego character Akira Nise, illustrated by manga artist Bkub Okawa.

Writing

"Create" was written and produced by Hoshino, who arranged and programmed it with Mabanua. The version that appeared in the anniversary commercial had been completed by February 2020, prior to Hoshino learning DAWs. After finishing "Halfway", he worked on a remix of "Good in Bed" for Dua Lipa's ''Club Future Nostalgia'' (2020), and then began to rearrange "Create" using keyboards. Due to the lack of live performances in his schedule as a result of the pandemic, Hoshino felt able to focus his energy on writing and meticulously crafting the song over a two-to-three month period.

"Create" was imagined by Hoshino as a high-tension track that would shock listeners and serve as a challenge to his keyboard skills. As the theme to the ''Super Mario Bros.'' anniversary, he wrote it about his own perspective on creativity, influenced by that of Nintendo. He penned lyrics about the importance of messing around, which he considered as essential to humanity as eating and sleeping. Originally, Hoshino intended to title the song —a motto used and plastered in offices by Nintendo founder Fusajiro Yamauchi—but opted for the broader to avoid classification as a (song used by a company to boost worker morale).

Analog synthesizers were used to theme the music on "Create" around the 8-bit world of the 1985 ''Super Mario Bros.'', which was the first video game Hoshino played. He scheduled a day as "Mario session" to jam melodies, songs, and sound effects from ''Super Mario'' and other Nintendo games, since he felt these sounds would need to be formally incorporated into the song's instrumentation and not sampled. Among the sounds practiced was the start-up jingle to the GameCube console and the World 1-1 theme from ''Super Mario Land'' (1989), which Hoshino told ''Real Sound'' in an interview were the most fun to rearrange.

Composition and lyrics

"Create" runs for 3 minutes and 56 seconds. Its instrumentation includes analog synthesizers (played by Hoshino and Mabanua), piano (Hirotaka Sakurada), digital piano (Hoshino, Mabanua, Sakurada), electric guitar (Ryosuke Nagaoka), drums (Tom Tamada), electric clavichord (Sakurada), vibraphone (Hoshino), contrabass (Wataru Iga), and cowbell (Mabanua). Noriyasu Kawamura plays the —a Japanese bell instrument—and Hoshino additionally provides handclapping and stomping sounds, the former alongside Mabanua. The song was recorded by Shojiro Watanabe and Shigeharu Nakauchi at Onkio Haus and Victor Studio, mixed by Watanabe, and mastered by Takahiro Uchida at Flair Mastering Works.

"Create" opens with a lyrical section in English, translated from Japanese by music producer Sunny Boy. Upbeat, it is a programmed J-pop song that progresses with breakbeat-esque drumming. ''Rockin'On Japan'' Tomohiro Ogawa described the track as high-tempo soul, like a broken metronome, mixed with 8-bit music that sounds like three minutes of Mario "flashing and B-dashing with a Super Star". In the lyrics, Hoshino calls for listeners to create something that defies common sense. He encourages them to play around and continue learning, despite the increasingly "stagnant" world.

Both musically and lyrically, "Create" incorporates several references to ''Super Mario'' and Nintendo. These include a vibraphone arrangement of the GameCube start-up melody, the power-up sound that plays when Mario obtains a Super Mushroom, the stage music from ''Super Mario Land'', and the sound of shooting a fireball; according to Hoshino, the lattermost is used as a percussion. With the word ''directly'', he references a pose used by late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata during Nintendo Directs. Hoshino hints towards Nintendo's time as a ''hanafuda'' manufacturer in the line "Hold the flowers and cards I've been dealt", and uses the phrase "yellow magic" as a dual reference to both the yellow game cartridges of the Famicom and the electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra. Other parts of the lyrics touch on Hoshino's diagnosis with a subarachnoid hemorrhage in 2012; he compares his eventual recovery to the life system from ''Super Mario Bros.'' in the lines "I was reborn / My billionth fresh restart" and "I returned from the brink of death / The meaning of life is to play with life itself".

Reception

Critics thought that "Create" showed Hoshino's respect for Nintendo; Azuki Ogiwara at ''Real Sound'' thought that the references in the song conveyed his deep resonation with the company's creative philosophy. Game journalist Shirokawa, writing for the video game magazine ''Famitsu'', noted that Hoshino had previously incorporated melodies from the manga franchise ''Doraemon'' in its namesake song "Doraemon" (2018), and concluded that "Create" similarly comes across with his feelings for ''Super Mario'' and Nintendo.

Composition-wise, ''Rockin'On Japan'' Emi Sugiura viewed "Create" as a return to fundamental J-pop music and wrote that its lyrics on creativity proved Hoshino as a pop scene frontrunner. Ogiwara found the musical development to be "hectic"; she praised the lyrics for including varied ideas and described the multi-instrumental composition as imaginative. She highlighted the vibraphone performance of the GameCube jingle, which she wrote had an "unexpressable, otherworldy feel". The lyrics on "Create" were interpreted by some critics as both a personal anecdote from Hoshino and encouraging to listeners. Ryūtarō Amano, for the web magazine ''Mikiki'', found the song's message on creativity uplifting and the references to his hemorrhage as representative of Hoshino as an artist.

Within its week of digital release, "Create" received 45,557 paid downloads and 2.9 million streams. Also powered by that week's greatest radio airplay, it debuted at number seven on the ''Billboard Japan'' Hot 100 dated March 1, 2021. The single opened at number one on the Top Download Songs chart, where it dethroned the four-week reigning "Usseewa" (2020) by singer Ado. It reached tenth on the Oricon Combined Singles Chart, a competitor to the Hot 100. At number 94, "Create" became Hoshino's first song to enter the ''Bilboard'' Global Excl. US, which had been launched in September 2020. The Recording Industry Association of Japan awarded "Fushigi" / "Create" a gold certification for 100,000 physical units sold.

Music video and performances

A first-time collaborator with Hoshino, directed the music video to "Create" using various camera methods, including an iPhone and 8mm film. In the video, Hoshino sings as he performs various expressions and movements on top of post-production effects. The video interacts with the references to Nintendo in the music and lyrics; when the GameCube jingle is played, the screen is divided into several panels as a nod to the console's start-up visual, and Hoshino performs Iwata's pose in conjunction with the lyrics that use ''directly''. Premiered to YouTube alongside the song's release on February 17, 2021, ''Musicman'' and ''Billboard Japan'' reported that it surpassed one million views within a day and five million views within a month. Behind-the-scenes clips were uploaded on March 4, 2021.

Hoshino performed a calmed version of "Create" during his online concert Yellow Pass Live Streaming: Enkai on March 6, 2021, which was filmed and released on the ''Enkai'' edition of the "Fushigi" / "Create" single. Before the performance, he joked to his bandmates that the song might be difficult due to its "tricky" progression, and afterwards exclaimed: "We did it! Wonderful!". On December 16, 2024, Hoshino performed a Christmas rendition of the song alongside a "Snow" version of his 2023 single "Why" for an episode of the music program '' CDTV Live! Live!''.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Gen Hoshino.

;Digital-only single
# "Create" – 3:56

;Double A-side single
# " Fushigi" – 4:50
# "Create" – 3:56
# "Dancing on the Inside" (New Year's Eve) – 3:48
# "Tomato" – 2:48

;Double A-side single
#"Opening" – 1:51
#"Kudaranai no Naka ni" – 4:48
#"Pop Virus" – 5:03
#"Yuge" – 5:18
#"Kids" – 4:18
#"Hada" – 4:25
#"Ain't Nobody Know" – 4:53
#"Dead Leaf" – 3:37
#"Ranshi" – 3:56
#"Create" – 3:04
#"Sun" – 4:20
#"Doraemon" – 4:16
#"Sakura no Mori" – 6:34
#"Enkai (Uchiage)"
#"Enkai Documentary"

;Double A-side single
#"Opening" – 1:31
#"Pop Virus" – 4:27
#"Why Don't You Play in Hell? – 4:02
#"Yuge" – 4:10
#"Step" – 3:22
#"Sakura no Mori" – 6:22
#"Hada" – 4:25
#"Ain't Nobody Know" – 4:11
#" Halfway" – 3:11
#"Rōfūfu" – 2:25
#"Mirai" – 3:52
#"Dancing on the Inside" – 2:25
#"Purin" – 1:37
#" Crazy Crazy" – 3:42
#"Sun" – 4:05
#" Koi" – 4:13
#"Same Thing" – 3:32
#"Hello Song" – 4:42
#"Watashi" – 3:42
#"Gratitude Documentary"

Credits and personnel

Music and production credits adapted from "Fushigi" / "Create" on Hoshino's official website; video personnel taken from the ''Music Video Tour 2: 2017–2022'' credits booklet

;Instruments

*Gen Hoshino lead vocals, background vocals, analog synthesizer (Prophet-5, Jupiter-8), digital piano (Rhodes), vibraphone, handclaps, stomping
* Mabanua analog synthesizer (Jupiter-8), digital piano (Rhodes), cowbell, handclaps
*Hirotaka Sakurada Clavinet, analog synthesizer (Jupiter-8), piano, digital piano (Nord Electro)
*Ryosuke Nagaoka electric guitar, background vocals
*Tom Tamada drums
*Wataru Iga contrabass
*Noriyasu Kawamura

;Production

*Gen Hoshino songwriting, production, arrangement, arrangement of background vocals, programming
*Mabanua co-arrangement, programming
*Sunny Boy English translation
*Ryosuke Nagaoka arrangement of background vocals
*Naoyuki Honzawa analog synth manipulation
*Shojiro Watanabe mix, recording
*Shigeharu Nakauchi recording
*Shu Saida recording assistance
*Daiki Iimura recording assistance
*Takahiro Uchida mastering

;Locations
*Recorded at Onkio Haus (Ginza) and Victor Studio (Shibuya)
*Mastered at Flair Mastering Works (Shibuya)

;Music video

* direction
* Hiroshi Okuyama direction of photography
*Higasix direction of lighting
*Miki Sakurai production management
*Naoyuki Hashimoto production design
*Wataru Watanabe production
*Keisuke Hōman production
*Takakusagi Go hair, make-up
*Shōtarō Yamaguchi styling
* choreography
*Koyuki Sato dancer
*Yui Kasai dancer
*Aira Yui dancer
*Gen Hoshino cast

Charts

Certifications

Notes

References

External links

* on Hoshino's official website
* on Hoshino's official website

{{Authority control

2021 songs
2021 singles
Double A-side singles
Gen Hoshino songs
Songs in Japanese
Speedstar Records singles
Songs used as jingles
Mario (franchise) music
Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary