SuperJunior

SUPERJUNIOR

Super Junior (Korean: 슈퍼주니어), often referred to as SJ or SuJu (슈주), is a popular boy band from South Korea formed by SM Entertainment in 2005. With a total of 13 members, they are one of the largest boy bands 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 only Chinese member, Han Geng, was chosen from three thousand applicants via auditions held in China by SM Entertainment in 2001. As of 2010, only 10 members are active, due to Han Geng's ongoing lawsuit against SM Entertainment, Kibum's pursuit of other interests, and Kang-in's leave of absence for mandatory military service. However, the remaining members have insisted that they are still part of the group.

Super Junior has released and contributed in 20 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. In 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, and is the second singing group to win Favorite Artist Korea at the 2008 MTV Asia Awards after JTL in 2003.

Pre-debut

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. Sungmin and Donghae were also selected to be trainees after their appearance in an SM-sponsored contest. In 2002, Heechul and Kangin were recruited along with Kibum, who was discovered in Los Angeles. Siwon was recruited in 2003 and Ryeowook in 2004, in which the later was discovered through the Chin Chin Youth Festival singing competition. In 2005, Shindong was selected. The last member, Cho Kyuhyun,was then discovered after he won third place at the Chin Chin Singing Competition in 2005.

2005–2006: The Super Junior project

Super Junior 05 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. 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. 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 400,000 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

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.^[34][43][45] 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. They 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 2008.

Super Junior's third album, Sorry, Sorry, was released on March 12, 2009 with acclaimed reviews. The 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. After 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 also #1 for a record-breaking 33 weeks in Taiwan.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.

2010-present: Bonamana

On May 6, 2010, the teaser for their upcoming fourth studio album, Bonamana, was released through SM Entertainment's YouTube page. The full music video was released on 12 May. It reached the 1 million views mark in just one day after release. Bonamana was released on May 13, 2010 in South Korea. Bonamana was the first album released by the group in which members Han Geng, Kibum, and Kang-in did not appear. Han Geng is currently processing his contract termination with SM Entertainment. Bonamana also broke a personal record for the group by having over 200,000 pre-orders. On May 14, 2010, Super Junior had their comeback stage on KBS Music Bank, performing title track "미인아 (BONAMANA)" and "나쁜 여자 (Boom Boom)". On May 17, 2010, a teaser movie for "Victory Korea", which is going to be used for the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, was released through SM Entertainment's YouTube page. To date the album has sold over 100,000 copies according to Hanteo, becoming the current best-selling album of 2010.

Super Junior will be kicking off their third Asian tour, Super Show 3, in South Korea on 14 and 15 August 2010 at the Seoul Olympic Stadium. Super Show 3 will also make stops in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Manila.

On May 25, 2010, Super Junior released their repackaged album. The song "No Other" is one of the four tracks in the album.

SuperJunior's Strongness

Musical style

As a whole, Super Junior has released four 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.

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 known for doing performances that are heavily centered around their choreography, and are acclaimed for their highly synchronized dances. The group's pre-debut performance was a hip hop dance and they have also joined B-boy battles and performances throughout their career.

Their dance styles are widely termed as street dancing, with a majority of their choreography containing hip hop dance moves such as popping, waving, sliding, and liquid dancing. Dances in the form of martial arts are widely used in their dance routines as both Han Geng and Sungmin are professionally trained in that area. Shindong was the main choreographer for "U" and for a majority of the group's other dance sequences. Eunhyuk choreographed the dance for "Boom Boom" and worked with the other members to create the dance choreography for "Don't Don" and "Marry U", both promotional singles for the group's second album.

After knowing more about them let's share our love with them !!

SuperJunior, saranghe !!

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Junior