| "Why Don't You Play in Hell?" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by Gen Hoshino | ||||
| from the album Yellow Dancer | ||||
| Language | Japanese | |||
| Released | October 2, 2013 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 3:46 | |||
| Label | Speedstar | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Gen Hoshino | |||
| Producer(s) | Gen Hoshino | |||
| Gen Hoshino singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "Why Don't You Play in Hell?" (Official Video) on YouTube | ||||
"Why Don't You Play in Hell?" (Japanese: 地獄でなぜ悪い, Hepburn: Jigoku de Naze Warui, lit. "What's Bad About Hell?") (Japanese pronunciation: [dʑigokɯ de naꜜze waɾɯꜜi]) is a song by Japanese singer-songwriter and musician Gen Hoshino from his fourth studio album, Yellow Dancer (2015). It was released through Speedstar Records on October 2, 2013, as the first single from the album. It is a rock and J-pop track with elements of jazz and blues, written and self-produced by Hoshino as the main theme to the Sion Sono film of the same name. Lyrically, it compares daily life to hell and sings that people must therefore take on their challenges.
The single was announced in July 2013, and released while Hoshino was on a hiatus due to a subarachnoid hemorrhage, discovered a week after he had finished writing the song's lyrics. Upon release, the single took number five on the Oricon and Billboard Japan weekly singles charts and ended at number 20 on Oricon's monthly ranking of October. "Why Don't You Play in Hell?" received positive reception from music critics, who praised its theme. The music video to the song, directed by Hoshino and animated by Naoyuki Asano, was released to video platforms in September and follows a hospitalized boy who fantasizes of fighting monsters as a muscular hero. It won Best Video from a Film at the 2014 Japanese MTV Awards.