For the professional wrestling tournament, see Best of the Super Juniors.
| Super Junior | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Super Junior members at the LG Optimus Super Junior Fan meeting, hotel CHATEAU de CHINE, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, November 2011 | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as | SJ, SuJu |
| Origin | Seoul, South Korea |
| Genres | K-pop, Pop, R&B, dance-pop, electropop, Dance, hip-hop, bubblegum pop |
| Years active | 2005–present |
| Labels | S.M. Entertainment (South Korea) Avex Group (Japan) |
| Associated acts | Super Junior-K.R.Y. Super Junior-T Super Junior-M Super Junior-Happy SM Town S.M. The Ballad M&D |
| Website | superjunior.smtown.com superjunior-jp.net/index.html www.facebook.com/superjunior |
| Members | |
| Leeteuk Heechul Han Geng Yesung Kangin Shindong Sungmin Eunhyuk Donghae Siwon Ryeowook Kibum Kyuhyun | |
| Korean name | |
|---|---|
| Hangul | 슈퍼주니어 |
| Revised Romanization | Syupeo junieo |
| McCune–Reischauer | Syupŏjuniŏ |
Super Junior (Korean: 슈퍼주니어) is a South Korean boy band. Formed in 2005 by producer Lee Soo-man of SM Entertainment, the group comprised a total of thirteen members at its peak, and was once claimed to be the world's largest boy band.[1] Super Junior originally debuted with twelve members, consisting of leader Leeteuk, Heechul, Han Geng, Yesung, Kangin, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook, and Kibum. Kyuhyun was added to the group in 2006.
Super Junior launched into international recognition following the release of their best-selling single "Sorry, Sorry" in 2009, the title song of their most critically successful album Sorry, Sorry.[2][3] The group has released and contributed to over 20 records with varying degrees of success,[4] and was the best-selling K-pop artist for three years in a row.[5] Over the years, they have been divided into smaller subgroups, 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.[4] In addition to their commercial success, Super Junior has earned six music awards from the Mnet Asian Music Awards, nine from the Golden Disk Awards, and is the second singing group to win Favorite Artist Korea at the 2008 MTV Asia Awards after jtL in 2003.[6][6]
In December 2009, Han Geng left the group after filing a lawsuit against their agency SM Entertainment.[7] Heechul and Kangin announced their hiatus to fulfill their mandatory military service of two years, and Kibum temporarily parted with the group for his pursuit of an acting career, leaving Super Junior with nine active members.[8][9][10][11]
Musical career
2000–05: Formation and debut
In 2000, SM Entertainment held their first overseas casting auditions in Beijing, China and recruited Han Geng, who auditioned against three thousand applicants.[12] That same year, Leeteuk, Yesung and Eunhyuk were recruited after auditioning for the company's annual casting system in Seoul. Sungmin and Donghae became trainees after jointly winning first place in an SM-sponsored contest in 2001. In 2002, Heechul and Kangin were recruited along with Kibum, who was discovered in Los Angeles, California by a casting agent. Siwon became a trainee after being scouted in 2003 and Ryeowook in 2004, who was recruited into the company after winning the 2004 Chin Chin Youth Festival singing competition.[13] Shindong and Kyuhyun, the latter winning third place at the 2005 Chin Chin Youth Festival, were cast in 2005. In early 2005, Lee Soo-man announced that he had been preparing for an all-boy project group of twelve members to debut at the end of the year. He called this singing group to be "The Gateway to Hell of Asia,"[14] as most of the members in this group were chosen for their experiences as actors, MCs, models, and radio hosts prior debut. Heechul and Kibum were already established actors at the time, and most of the other members had already made various kinds of appearances in television and media.[15][16][17] Inspired by the rotational concept of Japan's girl group Morning Musume, Lee said that his new group would also experience line-up changes, with new members replacing 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."[18][a] However, before the group settled with their current name, the company simply referred to them as Junior, a representation of the members' young ages when they first became SM trainees.[18] After the members' showcased their different talents to the company at a picnic, the company finalized their group name to Super Junior, and officially became Super Junior 05, the first generation of Super Junior.[13] Super Junior 05 made their pre-debut performance on the Korean channel Mnet on September 11, 2005.[b] At the showcase, they performed various styles of hip-hop dancing, where they danced to B2K's "Take It to the Floor". Han Geng, Eunhyuk, and Donghae also performed a separate dance together, 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. The group officially debuted on SBS's music program Popular Song 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, followed by the release of their debut album SuperJunior05 (Twins) on December 6, 2005. The album sold 28,536 copies in the first month of release and debuted at number three in the monthly chart of December 2005.[19][c]
[edit] 2006–07: U, concept changes and commercial success
In February 2006, Super Junior 05 began performances for "Miracle", the second promotional single from their debut album. "Miracle" topped the music charts of Thailand, drawing interest from international markets.[20] As promotions for "Miracle" ended, SM Entertainment began selecting new members for Super Junior's second generation, Super Junior 06. The company even prepared a list of chosen members that were to graduate from the group. However, the company abandoned the rotational concept after adding a thirteenth member, Kyuhyun, in 2006. The group then became known as just Super Junior, without the suffix "05".[21][22] After the addition of Kyuhyun, Super Junior released their single "U" for free download on May 25, 2006 on their official website. "U" exceeded 400,000 downloads within five hours of release and ultimately surpassed 1.7 million downloads, crashing the server.[23][24] The physical single of "U" with a total of three tracks was released on June 6, eventually selling over 81,000 units in South Korea.[25] The single became one of Korea's most popular songs of the year, taking up number one spots for five consecutive weeks on two of Korea's top music programs.[26] By the end of the year, Super Junior collected over seven awards in five of South Korea's top musicaward ceremonies, and was one of the three Best Newcomer winners at the 21st Golden Disk Awards. In late 2006, Kyuhyun, Ryeowook, and Yesung formed the subgroup Super Junior-K.R.Y., Super Junior's first sub-unit. They performed their first single "The One I Love", theme song to the Korean telev
ision drama Hyena, on the KBS music program Music Bank on November 5, 2006.[27] In February 2007, Leeteuk, Heechul, Kangin, Sungmin, and Eunhyuk formed Super Junior-T, a trot-singing group. They released their first single "Rokuko" on February 23, 2007, and made a debut performance on Popular Songs two days later.[28] 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.[29][30] Don't Don sold over 60,000 units the first day of release and debuted at number one on the monthly chart of September 2007.[31] Although Don't Don received mixed reviews from critics, the album went to sell more than 160,000 copies by the end of the year, becoming the second best-selling record of 2007.[32][33][c] Super Junior received seven nominations at the 2007 Mnet/KM Music Festival, winning three of them which included Artist of the Year, termed by many as the highest recognition of the ceremony.[34] Super Junior collected two more recognitions at the 22nd Golden Disk Awards, including a Disk Bonsang award (Record of the Year).[35]
