Super Junior
often referred to as SJ or SuJu
is a boy band from Seoul, South Korea formed by SM Entertainment in 2005. With a total of thirteen members, Super Junior is the largest boy band in the world.
The group consists of Leeteuk (leader), Heechul, Han Geng, Yesung, Kang-in, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook, Kibum, and Kyuhyun. The Chinese member, Han Geng, was chosen from three thousand applicants, via auditions held in China by SM Entertainment in 2001.
Super Junior has released and contributed in 19 different kinds of records with varying degrees of success.Over the years, they have been divided into smaller sub groups, simultaneously targeting different music industries and audiences. Largely due to Super Junior’s success as entertainers, other Korean entertainment managements began to train their music groups in other areas of entertainment, such as acting and hosting.
n addition to their commercial success, Super Junior has earned seven music awards from the M.net Asian Music Awards, eleven from the Golden Disk Awards (including Album of the Year and Daesang), and is the second singing group to win Favorite Artist Korea at the MTV Asia Awards after JTL in 2008
Musical history
Since the late 1990s, Korean talent agency and record label SM Entertainment has been holding annual auditions to scout new talents that complemented the success of pop groups H.O.T, S.E.S, and Shinhwa, all of which were created by SM founder Soo-Man Lee in the mid 1990s. Leeteuk and Eunhyuk were the first two members of the group to be recruited in 2000 under SM’s Starlight Casting System in Seoul. In 2001, the company held their first overseas casting auditions and discovered Han Geng in Beijing, who was chosen among three thousand applicants. That same year, Yesung was discovered under Seoul’s casting system with his friend HeeChul. Sungmin and Donghae were also selected to be trainees after their appearance in an SM-sponsored contest. In 2002, Heechul and Kangin was recruited along with Kibum, who was discovered in Los Angeles. Siwon was casted in 2003 and Ryeowook in 2004, in which the later was discovered through the Chinchin Youth Festival singing competition. In 2005, Shindong was selected.
Not long after boy band TVXQ‘s debut in 2003, news about Lee’s unprecedented plans of forming another boy band quickly spread on the Internet. In early 2005, Lee confirmed the news and announced that an all-boy project group of twelve members would debut near the end of the year, promoting this singing group to be “The Gateway to Stardom of Asia.”
Lee announced that that most members in this group were chosen because of their performing experiences as actors, MCs, models, and radio hosts prior debut. Heechul and Kibum were already established entertainers, and most of the other members had already made various kinds of appearances on television and media. Highly inspired by the rotational concept of Japan’s girl group Morning Musume, this group would also experience line-up changes, with new members replacing some selected members every year to keep the group constantly young and all-rounded. This concept was then newly introduced to the K-pop market.For a while the group was rumored to be called O.V.E.R, the acronym for “Obey the Voice for Each Rhythm.”
However, before the group settled with their current name, SM simply referred to them as Junior, a representation of the members’ young ages when they first became SM trainees. After the members’ showcased their different talents to the company at a picnic, the company finalized their concept name to Super Junior. The group thereafter became officially Super Junior 05, the first generation of Super Junior.
Super Junior 05 made their pre-debut on the Korean channel Mnet on September 11, 2005. At the showcase, they performed various styles of hip hop dancing. The group danced to B2K‘s “Take It To The Floor.” Han Geng, Eunhyuk, and Donghae also performed a separate dance away from the group, dancing to Usher‘s “Caught Up.” However, the performance did not air on television until May 16, 2006 as a segment in the Super Junior Show, the group’s first television documentary.
2005–2006: The Super Junior project
Super Junior 05 debuted on SBS‘s music program Popular Songs on November 6, 2005, performing their first single, “TWINS (Knock Out).” A digital single with “TWINS (Knock Out)”, “You are the one”, and three additional tracks were released online on November 8. A physical CD single was scheduled to be released the following week but a more complete album, SuperJunior05 (TWINS), was released on December 6, 2005 instead. Their debut album sold 28,536 copies in the first month of release and debuted at #3 in the monthly chart of December 2005.[12][c] In that same month, they released “Show Me Your Love,” a collaboration single with TVXQ. “Show Me Your Love” became the best-selling record of December 2005, selling 49,945 copies that month. In February 2006, Super Junior 05 began performances for “Miracle“, the second promotional single from their debut album. “Miracle” was the group’s first single to peak #1 in online music charts of South Korea as well as the music charts of Thailand, drawing interest from international markets. As promotions for “Miracle” came to an end, SM Entertainment began selecting new members for Super Junior’s second line-up project, Super Junior 06. The company even prepared a list of chosen members that were to graduate from the group. However, no members were taken out and a thirteenth member was added instead in May 2006. The line-up project has been abandoned since then, and the group became known as just Super Junior, without the suffix “05”
2006–2007: Breakthrough success
On May 23, 2006, SM Entertainment revealed the thirteenth member Kyuhyun, who was discovered through a singing competition in 2005. They released their single “U” online for free download on May 25, 2006 in their official website. “U” had over 400 thousand downloads within five hours of release and it ultimately exceeded 1.7 million downloads, crashing the server. The physical single of “U” with a total of three tracks was released on June 6, 2006, eventually selling over 81,000 units. The single became one of Korea’s most popular songs of the year, yielding #1 spots for five consecutive weeks on two of Korea’s top music programs. By the end of the year, Super Junior collected over seven awards in five of South Korea’s top music award ceremonies, winning the title as Best New Group of 2006. Super Junior’s first sub-unit, the ballad-singing trio Super Junior-K.R.Y., debuted on November 5, 2006 with a performance of Hyena theme song “The One I Love” on KBS music program Music Bank. A second sub-unit arrived in February 2007 called Super Junior-T. The trot-singing group released their first single “Rokkugo” in February 23, 2007 and made a debut performance on Popular Songs two days later. Super Junior’s second official album was intended for a late 2006 release, but due to several accidental setbacks, Don’t Don was not released until September 20, 2007. Within the first three days of release, offline album sales for Don’t Don passed the 11,000 unit mark, debuting as #1 in all available offline charts. It finished the September monthly album sales as #1. 60,000 units were shipped by the first week of release and additional copies were printed. Although Don’t Don received rather bland reviews from critics, the album sold more than 160,000 copies by the end of the year, becoming the second best-selling record of 2007.
The album also found success in Taiwan; it broke the record for being the highest ranked Korean album on the G-music Combo Billboard Chart, surpassing the albums of TVXQ and Shinhwa. Super Junior’s album also ranked above Taiwanese boy band K One, whose album debuted at #6. Supported by the release of Don’t Don, Super Junior was nominated in seven separate categories at the 2007 M.NET/KM Music Festival that was held on November 17, 2007. Super Junior won three of those categories including “Netizen Choice Award” and “Mobile Popularity”, being the biggest winner of the night. The group also won “Best Artist of the Year” (Daesang), termed by many as the highest recognition of the ceremony. Super Junior collected two more awards on December 14, 2007 at the 2007 Golden Disk Awards. Although defeated by SG Wannabe in winning the “Daesang”, Super Junior won a “Bonsang” and the “TPL Anycall Popularity Award”, which were reported as expected wins for the group by the media after the success of Don’t Don.
2008–2009: Beyond Korea
On October 2, 2007, SM Entertainment announced a third Super Junior sub-unit Super Junior-M, a subgroup designated for the Chinese market . While the creation of the subgroup created a brief controversy between the fans and the management, Super Junior-M became a phenomenal success in China,having the opportunity to have two sold-out concerts in Hong Kong top weekly ratings with their appearance on variety programs, and becoming the idol group with the most endorsement contracts in China. With the absence of almost half of the members in Korea, a fourth Super Junior sub-unit was created that same year to prevent Super Junior from disappearing in the Korean music industry. With five members from Super Junior-T and Yesung, they formed the subgroup, Super Junior-Happy. Super Junior-Happy released the EP Cooking? Cooking! on June 5, 2008, and promotions ended on September 7, lasting for four months. In November 2008, Super Junior-T returned, this time as a singing group in Japan, called SuperJunior-TxMoeyan; this group added Moeyan, a famous two-woman comedy group in Japan.
“ROCK&GO“, a Japanese-language version of “Rokuko”, debuted at #19 on the Oricon Daily Charts and jumped to #2 three days later. Super Junior’s first major tour, Super Show, commenced on February 22, 2008 in Seoul. The tour covered three countries and had shows on six different cities, including Bangkok, Shanghai, and Beijing. From July 8 to July 9, 2008, Super Junior held their first fan meeting in Japan, at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, as a celebration for the grand opening of their official Japanese Homepage which was launched on April 1, 2008.
12,000 tickets to the fanmeeting were all sold out in several days. The group released a compiled Japan single the following day, entitled “U/TWINS“, which includes the Japanese version of “U” in the limited release, to complement the event. The single peaked at #4 on Japan’s Oricon Daily Chart in its first day of release, and dropped down to only four places in its second. The single broke a new record for being the first Korean single to have made within top 10 on Japan’s Oricon Weekly Chart. On August 2, 2008, Super Junior expanded their routes to Genting Highlands, Malaysia, being one of the top guest performers at the MTV Asia Awards 2008 along with other international performing artists such as OneRepublic and the Jabbawockeez. hey are the third SM artist to win Favorite Artist Korea at the MTV Asia Awards after Kangta and BoA, and the second musical group to win the award after JTL in 2003.
Super Junior’s third album, Sorry, Sorry, was released on March 12, 2009 with acclaimed reviews. he title single of the album, “Sorry, Sorry” was digitally released on March 9, 2009. In less than a week after preorders were announced, over 150,000 copies were pre-ordered. Sorry, Sorry was their first album to debut at #1 on the Hanteo Charts, and it sold over 29,000 copies the first day, defeating Seo Taiji‘s record of 25,000. Promotions for the album started March 13 with the performance of “Sorry, Sorry” and “Why I Like You” on Music Bank. Two weeks later, “Sorry, Sorry” became the number one song of the week on the same program. During the group’s performance on music program Popular Songs on March 15, ratings went up to as high as 14%, the highest in recent years. From March to May, “Sorry, Sorry” collected a total of ten #1 awards with consecutive wins in Korea, having the single becoming a national and international success.
fter only a month of release, the album became South Korea’s best-selling album of 2009. Sorry, Sorry was also a critically and commercially successful hit in other Asian countries, opting the group to become the only overseas representative for the second time at Taiwan’s annual Golden Melody Awards. Sorry, Sorry was a best-selling Korean-language album in Taiwan, Thailand, China, and the Philippines, in which the latter listed the album to be the first K-pop album to reach #1 in music charts from the country. Super Junior won three awards in the 1st MNET Asian Music Awards – Overseas Viewers Award, Mobile Popularity Award and CGV Popularity Award despite not attending. Super Junior’s Sorry, Sorry won Daesang at the 2009 Golden Disk Awards. On December 10, 2009, a music video called Sorry, Sorry – Answer was released through SM Entertainment’s YouTube page. They also sang “S.E.O.U.L. Song” with the group’s own Kyuhyun, Donghae, Siwon, Leeteuk, Ryeowook, Sungmin, and others along with some of Girls Generation members Seohyun, Sunny, Sooyoung, Taeyeon and Jessica and also other some other members in the two groups.
2010: Continuing Super Show 2 Tour and Fourth Studio Album Super Junior’s Asian Tour: Super Show 2 is planned to come to four more cities; Beijing, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila. In January 2010, members Leeteuk, Shindong, Siwon, Eunhyuk and Donghae traveled to Thailand to make an appearance on KPN Awards and also confirmed that Super Junior would be releasing a fourth album very soon.
Artistry,
Musical style
As a whole, Super Junior has released three studio albums and one physical single, including occasional contributions to drama soundtracks. They are acclaimed for their vocal harmonization and unison as each member contributes a different voice range in their music. Leeteuk, Heechul, Hangeng, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Donghae, and Ryeowook are all tenors. Yesung, Kangin, and Siwon are baritones. Shindong, Kibum, and Kyuhyun sing in bass. Some members are credited for their
vocal belting techniques, notably Yesung. Despite significant vocal contributions by each member, Yesung, Sungmin, Ryeowook, and Kyuhyun are labeled as the group’s lead vocalists. Shindong, Eunhyuk, and Kibum are the group’s main
rappers, with Heechul and Donghae consistently rapping as the supporting vocals. Eunhyuk also regularly contributes in writing the group’s rap music.Super Junior’s music mainly fall into the category of mainstream
Korean pop. Songs of this genre are usually mixed with different branches of
electronic instruments, with heavy emphasis on
urban contemporary,
dance pop, and
rap. Generic pop melodies were used more in
SuperJunior05 (TWINS), while R&B and sulty electronica beats were used more in
Sorry, Sorry.
Super Junior works closely with Young Jin Yoo, who has produced and arranged most of the group’s promotional singles since debut. Yoo’s also known for creating the renowned SMP style, a genre that includes a balanced infusion of rock, R&B, and rap, with complementing musical elements such as the
electric guitar, bass, and other different
percussion instruments.
Super Junior has prominently used this SMP style in Don’t Don. Super Junior has covered quite a few song in their albums. Their debut single “TWINS (Knock Out)” is a
cover of
Triple Eight‘s “Knockout,” which was released in 2003. While the musical style is mostly maintained as the original, “TWINS (Knock Out)” touches closer to
rap rock, with quicker rap and more emphasis on the
bass instruments. In most of their covers, the original titles are kept. Examples include Cape’s “L.O.V.E” and
Exile’s “Believe.” However, most of these covers are re-arranged to different accompaniments, such as H.O.T’s “Full of Happiness”.
Dance style
Super Junior are best known to be a youthful, energetic, and humorous group. The group has also remarked that having good teamwork is one of the key reasons to their success. The bonding and friendship between members have been apparent since before the group’s debut, when SM arranged all of them to live in one apartment. Heechul has mentioned several times that if it wasn’t for his members, he would have left Super Junior to pursue a dedicated acting career.
Musically, Super Junior are known for having many different fabricated images with each new release. Super Junior’s debut image leaned softly towards a rock appearance to complement the rap/rock “TWINS (Knock Out).” For “Miracle,” many of the members displayed a youthful and cute image with their lighter hair color and cute dance style. The group soon transitioned to a more mature, preppy style with “U”, where the members changed their hair to a darker color and wore darker, more flamboyant outfits. For the release of Don’t Don, the group headed for an edgy transformation. Their outfits became more revealing and many members bleached their hair, wore dark makeup, and had temporary tattoos. Kang-in had a hairstyle that was a buzz cut with scratched designs, Leeteuk’s and Sungmin’s hair were bleached blond and half shaved, while Heechul, Han Geng, and Kyuhyun sported with bright-colored hairstyles, which were all inspired by punk fashion and modifications of hip hop fashion. With their comeback in early 2009, the 13 guys showed the transformation from boys to men. To match the bouncy beats of Sorry, Sorry,they donned stylish and fitted suits with accessories such as: ties, bows, aviators, and leather gloves. Not only did Super Junior return with their “own fashion”, they sported hairstyles of natural colors and short-cuts to give off a fresh look. For the It’s You promotions, they leaned toward a more casual, but a clean and manly look.
Criticism
Super Junior has been criticized in the past for lip-synching and lack of vocal skills specifically for shaky pitch and heavy breathing, The criticisms worsened in July 2006 when they lipsynched on Show! Music Core of MBC, a show that guarantees all live performances. Though fans have defended them saying that Heechul was ill, their critics do not accept this explanation. They argue that since the band contains thirteen members, one singer should not necessitate lipsynching by the entire group. Despite this, they have still remained popular through their large fan base and their album sales have been strong. To lighten the criticism, Super Junior’s first performance of “Don’t Don,” the lead single off the group’s second album, was live and not lipsynched. Out of the thirty-six songs that were performed at the group’s first live concert tour, Super Show, only six songs were lipsynched, a feat that earned positive reviews. Some members have also been performing a cappella versions of their songs.
Subgroups
Since debut, SM Entertainment has created four subgroups for Super Junior. Every member was put into different subgroups excluding Kibum, due to his busy acting schedule. The intentions of the subgroups were part of SM’s strategy to not limit Super Junior’s activities, and the goal was to show that the group could accommodate different musical genres. However, this strategy was later challenged by critics, as it has influenced an overwhelming amount of music groups to create official and unofficial subgroups alike. SM announced that Super Junior will form more subgroups in the future, and possible focuses of these subgroups include a variety of genres such as rock and hip hop. Previous Super Junior subgroups will also return to the industry along with appearances of new subgroups.
Debut
Prior to the group’s debut, the members had individually appeared in television dramas, with Leeteuk being the first member of the group to act; he was an extra as a moviegoer for the drama All About Eve in 2000. Kang-in appeared as an extra for The Secret Lovers in 2002, and Siwon made a brief cameo appearance in Precious Family in 2004. Kibum had his acting debut in 2004 as young Han Jung-woo in April Kiss and in 2005, he was given the main role Joo Yeo-myung for the year-long drama Sharp 2, starring alongside Go Ara and Heechul. A few months before Super Junior’s debut, Siwon starred as the young Kang Bong-man in Eighteen, Twenty-Nine; Heechul was given a role as a junior chef in Loveholic, and Sungmin starred as young Kang Dong-shin in morning drama Sisters of the Sea. After the group’s debut in November 2005, both Heechul and Kibum acted in the sixth season of the sitcom Nonstop from late 2005 to early 2006. Kibum individually starred in Marrying a Millionaire as young Kim Young-hoon in 2005 and in March 2006, Heechul starred as Gong Min in Bad Family. That same year, Siwon was part of the supporting cast for Spring Waltz and Kibum starred as Ha Yeongchan in Snow Flower. In 2007, Heechul starred as Kim Young-soo in the popular drama Golden Bride, which ended its broadcast in February 2008 after the extension of 14 episodes. Siwon starred as the ambitious Lee Mong-ryong in the two-episode parody historical drama Legend of Hyang Dan and Kang-in made a cameo appearance in Billie Jean, Look At Me. The song “It’s Just That”, sung by Super Junior-K.R.Y, was used as the drama’s theme song. In 2008, Kibum starred in the sitcom Chunja’s Happy Events as Park Jung-woo, and Kang-in had his first major television role in Romance Zero as Na Ho-tae in 2009. In August of 2009, Heechul played the piano for Lee Chul for Loving You a Thousand Time.
Siwon was among the first of Super Junior to have participated in silver-screen productions, appearing in the Hong Kong historical action drama film,
A Battle of Wits as the supporting role of Prince Liang in 2006. In 2007, Heechul, Kang-in, and Shindong lent their voices to the three chipmunks in the Korean release of
Alvin and the Chipmunks. In 2008, Kang-in had a major role in the Korean-language film,
Hello Schoolgirl. As a group, Super Junior starred in
Super Junior Mini-Drama, a television program hosted by the group that was released in late 2006. The group wrote, produced, and acted in the separate half-hour mini dramas. The subject matters of the dramas were chosen from viewers. n 2008, Leeteuk and Sungmin starred in the one-episode drama act
Super Junior Unbelievable Story. Both Leeteuk and Sungmin starred as themselves as a member of Super Junior-T. Despite numerous appearances as television actors, Super Junior are still best known for their reality shows, having participated in popular comedic reality shows such as
Super Junior Show (2005–2006),
Super Junior Full House (2006),
Super Adonis Camp (2006), and
Explorers of the Human Body (2007–2008). In contrast, the group released a horror documentary,
Mystery 6 in early 2006 that tells a story of a ghost. The members also starred in various
music videos of artists under SM Entertainment. The most notable performance was in
Zhang Liyin‘s debut music drama video, “
Timeless” (2006), featuring Han Geng and Siwon.
Hosting
The Super Junior members were one of the first Korean idols to begin television presenting and radio hosting. Heechul was the first in the group to be a selected MC for the music programs Popular Songs and Show Music Tank. He was also the first in the group to host radio shows, and co-hosted Youngstreet Radio Show with ex-M.I.L.K. member Park Heebon in early 2005. Leeteuk, Kang-in, and Shindong made their MC debut on Mnet’s music program M! Countdown five days after Super Junior’s debut performance. In August 2006, both Leeteuk and Eunhyuk founded their own radio show, Super Junior Kiss the Radio, which has become one of the more tuned-in radio channels in the country.
The group also founded their own reality television program, and on November 11, 2007, the premiere of Explorers of the Human Body aired on SBS. The humorous show introduced the thirteen members as regular guests for the program, answering curious questions and doing demonstrations involving the human body. Kyuhyun, who was recovering from a car accident during the first half of the show’s filming, joined the show in the later episodes. The show has been the highest rating program of the reality line-up every Sunday, but due to Super Junior’s tight schedule, the program ended quickly with thirteen episodes on February 3, 2008. The popularity of the program had inspired producers to create a second season, although no announcements of producing the next season has been announced.
Influence and impact
The largest group SM Entertainment has ever created, Super Junior is literally the biggest boy band in the world. During the course of Super Junior’s career, several pop groups were formed with similarly extraordinary numbers of members. JYP Entertainment recruited thirteen boys to be in a boy band, who were all revealed in the show, Hot Blood Men. Of these thirteen, eleven were split into two groups that debuted at different times: 2AM, which has four members, and 2PM, which has seven. ogether, the two groups form the eleven-member boy band One Day. Ast’1, a boy band under DSP Entertainment, released a promotional video in March 2008. In the short preview the boy band expressed that they would “Knock Down Super Junior”, which resulted in a lot of criticism lashed into the group. However, they clarified that they had no means to create conflict, and explained the reason why they want to defeat Super Junior is because they see Super Junior as their answer of success.
Endorsements
Super Junior members first began endorsing for various fashion lines in early 2006, notably for Ivy Club (2006–2007) and Spris (2006–2007). With their high popularity in Thailand, Siwon was contracted to be the main endorser for 12 Plus and began endorsing its products since 2007 with interchangeable Super Junior members. The group are also known for their string of humorous commercials for Thailand’s Yamaha Fino along with several other Thai entertainers, notably Golf & Mike. Super Junior were also appointed as the Goodwill ambassadors for the 2008 Korea and Thailand 50th Anniversary, honoring the good relationship Korea has held with Thailand for the past fifty years. Most recently in 2009, Super Junior have filmed CFs for brands such as Kyochon Chicken, Star Snacks and Happy Bubble.
THANKS FOR READING.
-Eurico Zen
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