Lighthouse (EP)

Lighthouse is the second extended play (EP) by Japanese musician Gen Hoshino. It contains six songs that Hoshino wrote for the talk show of the same name, hosted by Hoshino and comedian Masayasu Wakabayashi. The EP was released on September 8, 2023, by Speedstar Records and Netflix Music, exclusively for streaming platforms.

Hoshino offered to write a song for each episode of the talk show, as he found this concept interesting and believed it hadn't been done before. On the EP, Hoshino employed a production manner he compared to "messing around". This, along with the songs' usage as ending themes in a talk show, prompted him to take use of styles and techniques he feared he couldn't on other works. The alternative EP features varied genre throughout its track listing, including rock, hip hop, and acoustic. It was written, composed, and self-produced by Hoshino, and includes features from talk show co-host Wakabayashi and American instrumentalists Louis Cole and Sam Gendel.

Lighthouse peaked at No. 6 on Billboard Japan Hot Albums chart and at No. 18 on Oricon's Combined Albums chart. A digital-exclusive release, the EP reached No. 2 on the download charts of both Oricon and Billboard and was named 21st on Billboard year-end Top Download Albums ranking.

Background
Whilst working on the variety show Achikochi Audrey, presented by comedian Masayasu Wakabayashi, television producer and director Nobuyuki Sakuma became interested in creating a talk show hosted by the comedian and Gen Hoshino after the latter guest appeared on the program. Conceived under the working title Gen Hoshino and Masayasu Wakabayashi's One Year and later finalized to Lighthouse, Sakuma believed the idea would be a new experiment in the talk show genre, focusing on displaying the current, everyday worries of the celebrity presenters, rather than their success. Hoshino showed interest to the show's proposal and suddenly inquired to Sakuma about creating a song for every episode, thinking that the concept of creating a song for every episode of one's own talk show was interesting and something never done before. Hoshino intended to use work on the songs as a way to apply pressure to himself. Noting that his work process in recent years of 2023 had progressed leisurely, song-by-song, he believed the pressure and subsequent complete immersion in music would result in better sound, as he thought it had in the past.

Production and composition
Hoshino did not aim for the Lighthouse EP to be a commercial hit. Although considering many people listening to his music important, he instead prioritized having fun on the EP, not "pumping the breaks" on ideas he considered interesting. He compared creating the EP to messing around, but contended that this made for a more difficult production process than the standard because he needed dedicate himself more to maintain a good sound. Hoshino described creating a yearly birthday song for comedian Yūki Himura on Himura's radio program as training in this creative method: "[The birthday songs] are just playing. The thing is, they still need to be really good songs but simultaneously also need to be entertaining. Therefore you need to play seriously. Thanks to having trained with those for 14 years now, I was able to make Lighthouse (the EP)."

Lighthouse is 14 minutes long and contains six songs: a short version of the talk show's opening and main theme "Mad Hope", and the ending themes "Lighthouse", "Responder", "Outcast", "Orange", and "Dancing Reluctantly". All songs minus "Mad Hope" and "Orange" are recorded from live sessions. Apple Music lists Lighthouse as alternative music; individual tracks have been described by Hoshino and others as rock ("Outcast"), reminiscent to Hoshino's early acoustic style ("Lighthouse"), rap ("Orange"), blue-eyed soul ("Responder"), and "chaotic" ("Mad Hope"). Initially, Hoshino considered making all songs on the EP acoustic, but quickly found this approach boring. After adopting the production manner of "messing around", he began creating songs in styles that he felt was natural, resulting in varied genre throughout the track listing. Hoshino primarily based the songs in his and Wakabayashi's conversations from the talk show.

With context of the songs as themes for use in a talk show, Hoshino compared production to creating a soundtrack, putting thought into how the songs could invoke feelings and shock/surprise in listeners after episodes. Due to the talk show covering heavier topics, Hoshino felt he was able to take use of more direct and sharp words in the lyrics, where it may have appeared narcissistic and subsequently uninteresting in other works. This also applied to Lighthouse composition: thanks to the pretense of the talk show, Hoshino felt able to "suddenly" turn his instrumentation in a harsher direction, with elements such as warped vocals and drums.

Lighthouse includes features from Hoshino's talk show co-host Masayasu Wakabayashi on the rap song "Orange" and American multi-instrumentalist Louis Cole and saxophonist Sam Gendel on "Mad Hope". Hoshino had helped introduce Wakabayashi to performing rap during a guest appearance on Hoshino's segment of the radio program All Night Nippon, where Hoshino invited him to sing on a rap cover of his song "Pop Virus". Inspired after filming Lighthouse first episode, Wakabayashi wrote rap lyrics on his early adulthood, which would become "Orange". After presenting the lyrics to Hoshino, they together rewrote it to fit as an ending theme in latter half of the talk show, adding themes of worries that they possess even after "success." "Mad Hope" was recorded by Hoshino with Cole and Gendel at the 2023 Summer Sonic Festival, alongside other projects with different foreign artists.

Release and reception
The Lighthouse talk show was released as Netflix-exclusive series on August 22, 2023. "Mad Hope" serves as the main and opening theme, whereas the other five tracks were used as ending themes with live performance from Hoshino and his band members. In-show video for the songs was handled by Sakanaction music video director Yūko Yasunaga, aiming to contrast the "plain" talk segments with a "rich" and "stylish" style. The extended play of the songs was released by Speedstar Records and Netflix Music for streaming and download on September 8, 2023.

Fumiaki Amano for Rockin'On Japan magazine gave a positive review of Lighthouse, praising the "lonely, warm, and shining" album-oriented rock and blue-eyed soul sound on "Responder" and voicing excitement for a full-length version of "Mad Hope". Commercially, Lighthouse debuted at No. 2 on the digital download charts of both Oricon and Billboard Japan with 5,497 sales. It charted for four weeks on Billboard Hot Albums ranking with a peak at No. 6, and reached No. 16 on Oricon's Combined Albums Chart with two appearances. On their digital year-end chart, Billboard named Lighthouse as the 21st most-downloaded album of 2023.

Personnel
Credits adapted from Hoshino's website.


 * Gen Hoshino – producer, vocals, lyrics, composer, arrangement (all) ; acoustic guitar (#1) ; electric piano (#4) ; synthesizers, programming, background vocals (#4-6)
 * Ryosuke Nagaoka – electric guitar, background vocals, background vocals arrangement (#2-6)
 * Shu Saida – recording (all)
 * Shojiro Watanabe – audio mixing (all)
 * Takahiro Uchida – mastering (all)
 * Tom Tamada – drums (#2-3, #5)
 * Jungo Miura – electric bass (#2-3, #5)
 * Hirotaka Sakurada – digital synthesizer (#2) ; analog synthesizer (#3, #5)
 * Masayasu Wakabayashi (credited as MC. Waka) – lyrics, rap vocals (#4)
 * Louis Cole – drums (#6)
 * Sam Gendel – alto sax (#6)
 * Sam Wilkes – electric bass (#6)