Draft:Snow Men

"Snow Men" is a song by Japanese singer-songwriter and musician Gen Hoshino from his fourth studio album, Yellow Dancer (2015).

Composition
4 minutes and 34 seconds long, Hoshino wrote and produced "Snow Men". The song was written immediately after the album's third single "Sun" (2015), with Hoshino attempting to mix neo soul and J-pop genres into an image of a snowman in the summer sky. Hoshino has described it as a love song about summer snow. On Yellow Dancer track listing, Hoshino placed "Snow Men" after the jazz-influenced single "Crazy Crazy" (2014), attempting to show contrast in their different historical eras of sound.

Musically, "Snow Men" has elements of R&B and examplifies Yellow Dancer black music inspirations. It opens with a string arrangement and progresses with medium-to-fast pace, ending with Hoshino singing a falsetto vocal section. Its lyrics references water-related themes such as harbors and surface water, connecting to Yellow Dancer final track "Friend Ship". Reggie for Real Sound (website) described the song as "Gen Hoshino-styled neo soul" and Fanplus Music Tomoka Ishisumi called its melody alike album-oriented rock. Akimasa Munakata, a different writer for Real Sound, compared its time to "Soul", a soul music-like track on Yellow Dancer. Critics have attributed a feel of eroticism to "Snow Men", with the staff of CDJournal calling the track a winter song with elements that feel "adult-like" and "sexy". In an interview with Musica (magazine), Hoshino described "Snow Men" as a "song of sex".

Promotion and release
"Snow Men" was commissioned by the Japanese cosmetic company Maquillage, a subsidiary of Shiseido. The song featured in their Snow Beauty II advertising campaign, promoted via the short movie Snow Beauty released to the company's website on July 21, 2015. A love story, it stars Hoshino as a half-snowman half-human and Fumi Nikaido as a snow woman, marking their second shared appearance after Why Don't You Play in Hell? (2014). Alongside a new visual of Hoshino, a music video to "Snow Men" was released on September 11, 2015, without plans for the song itself to receive official release. Shot in an "adult" and "sexy" style to match the song's composition, it features Hoshino in a suit and slicked-back hair, singing next to blindfolded women in white dresses.

Hoshino announced Yellow Dancer, his fourth studio album, on October 14, 2015, and revealed "Snow Men" as part of its track listing. The full track listing unveiled on October 28 showed "Snow Men" as the album's tenth track, following "Crazy Crazy" and preceding "Down Town". Yellow Dancer was released via Speedstar Records on December 2, 2015. Though the song did not chart, it was received positively in album reviews.

Live performances
Prior to its music video and the release of Yellow Dancer, Hoshino debuted "Snow Men" during his Hitori Edge acoustic concert at the Nippon Budokan in August 2015.

Personnel
Performance and production credits adapted from Apple Music; music video credits adapted from the booklet to Music Video Tour 2010–2017.

Music personnel


 * Gen Hoshino – vocals, guitar, songwriter, producer
 * Ryosuke Nagaoka – guitar
 * Wataru Iga – bass guitar
 * Hajime Kobayashi – Rhodes piano
 * Noriyasu Kawamura – drums
 * Yu Sugino – violin
 * Mio Okamura – violin
 * Shohei Yoshida – violin
 * Osamu Iyoku – violin
 * Miho Shimokawa – violin
 * Mikiyo Kikuchi – viola
 * Reiichi Tateizumi – viola
 * Shinobu Hashimoto – cello
 * Takahiro Uchida – mastering engineer

Music video staff


 * Hidenobu Tanabe – director
 * Kōji Takayama – producer
 * Yoshitaka Murakami – cameraman
 * Miyaki Shinichi – lighting
 * Mamoru Komoto – production designer
 * Takakusagi Go – make-up, hair
 * Hideo Nakakane – styling
 * Masao Sugiura – production management
 * Yūko Miya – production management
 * Erisa – cast
 * Marika Oshikata – cast
 * Kano – cast
 * Purishia – cast
 * Mariko – cast
 * Minami – cast