Super Junior: History

On November 6th, 2005, Super Junior, one of the largest boy bands in the world, composed of 12 members, made its debut on SBS Inkigayo.

The band was created by SM Entertainment, one of the most successful companies in Korea's entertainment industry.

SM Entertainment was created on February 14th, 1995, by South Korean Lee Soo Man, who researched to find out what the teenagers of the time would like to see in a group. Based on the results of this research, the bands H.O.T. and S.E.S. were created. Both of these bands reached a high level of success in Korea, resulting in the creation of other bands like Shinhwa and Fly to the Sky.

In the 2000s, with the rising success of BoA, and the 2003-created band Dong Bang Shin Ki, there were rumors that Lee Soo Man would be creating a new boy band. The rumors became real when the creation of a 12-member boy band was announced in the beginning of 2005. The members were carefully selected, the majority having already had previous experience in the entertainment world. The band's initial line-up included Leeteuk, Heechul, Han Geng, Yesung, Kangin, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook and Kibum. Thus, they became the first 12 members of the world's largest boy band.

The band's name was originally O.V.E.R., an acronym for "Obey the Voice for Each Rhythm", and they were being promoted as the "gateway to stardom in Asia". Shortly thereafter, the band's name changed to Junior, due to the members' young ages at the time. It is said that, in a picnic with many of the SM Entertainment trainees, the producers, seeing the talent that each of the members of the future band had, said that they were "super", hence forming the band's present name, Super Junior.

Initially, the group was titled Super Junior 05, planned as a rotation band like the Japanese group Morning Musume., where the older members would be changed out every year, always altering the band's line-up. The name Super Junior 05 was meant to indicate the year of 2005, and thus, the band's line-up for that year. The next year, the members would have been changed, making a new generation called Super Junior 06. However, SM Entertainment gave up on that idea the following year, much to the excitement of fans who had grown to love the members. On May 23rd, 2006, the band's thirteenth member, Kyuhyun, was added, and the band's name changed simply to Super Junior.

The band's first performance was on September 11th, 2005, for the television channel M.net, and featured members dancing to hip-hop songs including Take it to The Floor by B2K and Usher's Caught Up. However, these performances were not part of their official debut and were not aired until May 16th, 2006, as part of the 25-episode documentary Super Junior Show.

SuperJunior05

Super Junior 05 released their eponymous first album: SuperJunior05 on November 5th, 2005. This album sold 28,536 copies in the first month of its release, reaching number one on the weekly ranking Hanteo and third place on the monthly ranking MIAK K-pop.

The day after the album's release, Super Junior 05 debuted officially as a group, performing the song TWINS (Knock Out) on SBS Inkigayo. On the 8th, this song was released as a digital single. TWINS (Knock Out), a cover of the 2003 song Knock Out by British boy band Triple Eight, is one of five tracks featured on the single, which demonstrated a wide variety of musical styles including rock-influenced R&B and soft bubblegum pop.

The album SuperJunior05 featured all of the songs from the digital single along with five other songs. This included the album's first track Miracle, the second single from the album. Miracle was released as a single on February 12th, 2006, and reached the top spot on the Airplay ranking for three straight weeks. On March 21st, Miracle was released in Thailand and reached number one on their charts as well.

To date, approximately 94,000 copies of SuperJunior05 have been sold.

Show Me Your Love

In a big marketing move by SM Entertainment,Super Junior 05 collaborated with the already-popular boy band Dong Bang Shin Ki for the song Show Me Your Love. A cheerful Christmas song, the single for Show Me Your Love was released on December 15th, 2005, and featured the title track along with two others, one by each individual group. It was also one of the earliest songs to showcase the lyric-penning talents of some members, with the song's rap segments written by Heechul, Shindong and Eunhyuk.

On December 18th, 2005, both groups took to the stage at SBS Inkigayo to perform the song. Show Me Your Love went on to sell 50,000 copies in December alone, the highest-selling single in the country for that month.

U

In 2006, after the addition of 13th member Kyuhyun and the name change to Super Junior, the group released a new single, U, on May 25th, for free download on their official website. Within the first five hours of its release, the single received over 400,000 downloads, and the website server crashed under the strain. Eventually, more than 1,700,000 copies of U were downloaded from the Super Junior website.

On June 6th, the single was released physically, becoming Super Junior's first official single. Despite the massive number of downloads, U went on to sell over 91,000 copies.

U was first performed on Icons I-Concert on May 27th. It won Inkigayo's Mutizen Song of the Week Award for three consecutive weeks, and came first place on M.net M!Countdown for two consecutive weeks. The single also did fantastically on the charts, peaking at number one on eight separate rankings, and won Super Junior seven awards as the year came to a close.

Due to the success of U, multiple versions have since been recorded, including a Mandarin version for the single's 2007 Taiwanese release, and a Japanese version for the dual A-side single U/TWINS, released in Japan in 2008.

Super Junior, Between Albums

The period of over two years that followed the release of U was a busy and taxing one for Super Junior.

Since the hugely successful release of Christmas in SMTOWN in 1999, SM Entertainment has regularly released albums featuring the majority of its artists in both solo and collaborative tracks. Super Junior participated in the June 2006 album '06 SUMMER SMTOWN, performing the song Taeyangeun Gadeughi (Red Sun) alongside their labelmates, as well as providing the album's third track, Dancing Out.

With promotions for U and the new song Dancing Out slowly ending, planning for Super Junior's second album began. However, on August 10th, Donghae's father passed away and Heechul was put out of action when a car accident on the way back from the funeral left him with his left leg broken in five different places, as well as other minor injuries. With Heechul advised by doctors to stop activities for 12 weeks, plans for Super Junior's second album were temporarily shelved, and the group started to be formed into smaller sub-units, each being used to promote different talents and styles of music.

Heechul was released from hospital in time for the release of 2006 WINTER SMTOWN - Snow Dream on December 12th. Again, Super Junior sung alongside their label-mates for the album's title track, and provided the third track, Tic! Toc!. The sub-unit Super Junior - K.R.Y. recorded a track for this album.

In March of 2007, Super Junior participated in their first soundtrack album, with several members involved in performing the songs Success and H.I.T. for the MBC mini-series Homicide Investigation Team.

Talk started again about Super Junior's second album, but the plans had to be shelved once again when, on April 19th, another car accident put Leeteuk, Shindong, Eunhyuk, Kyuhyun, and two of the band's producers in hospital. Shindong and Eunhyuk were kept in hospital for four days, having suffered only minor injuries, and Leeteuk was released after a week with a total of 170 stitches to his back and face. Kyuhyun suffered the most severe trauma, however. Along with deep cuts and bruising, Kyuhyun's hips were fractured and several ribs broken, resulting in a pneumothorax. As a result, Kyuhyun was kept in hospital for over two months. He was released on July 5th.

The same day, 2007 SUMMER SMTOWN - FRAGILE, a new SMTOWN album featuring remakes of SM Entertainment artists' older songs, was released. Super Junior again collaborated on the lead track, Yeohaengeul Ddeonayo (Let's go on a trip), as well as releasing a cover version of the old H.O.T. song Haengbok (Full of Happiness). As Kyuhyun's condition continued to improve outside of the hospital, talk started again about the upcoming second album.

Don't Don

Super Junior's second album, Don't Don, was released 10 months after originally slated, on September 20th, 2007. The misfortunes surrounding its release created more promotion than ever for the band, who staged their come back the day after the album's release, performing the album's title track, the rock-inspired R&B track Don't Don, on KBS Music Bank. Both visually and musically, Super Junior's style was greatly matured from that of the first album, with the members dressed in all black and looking like members of a rock band.

In its first week of release, Don't Don sold 60,000 copies. It debuted as number one in all offline charts, with the title song placing first on five different rankings. It outsold albums by Lee Soo Young and Wheesung to become the number one album released that month, and also became the second best selling album of the year with a total of 164,058 copies, falling 26,940 copies short of SG Wannabe's The Sentimental Chord.

The second single from the album was the love ballad Marry U. While it didn't find as much success as Don't Don before it, Marry U formed the centerpiece on a repackaged version of the album released on November 5th. This repackage also featured two completely new songs, and a longer remix edit of one of those songs, Galjeung (A Man In Love), which the band proceeded to perform alongside Don't Don for various television lives. On November 9th, a third repackage of the album was released, featuring the original album packed with a DVD. On November 27th, a digital version was also released.

As a single, Marry U reached first place on three charts and second on two other charts.

The album Don't Don was also released in Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Japan, with a special Japanese-language version of Marry U included as a bonus track. Marry U was also released as a single in Japan in 2008, and came in two versions, featuring either a DVD or photobook.

Shortly after the release of Don't Don, Super Junior participated in 2007 WINTER SMTOWN - Only Love, released on December 7th. Along with their label-mates, Super Junior performed the song Sarang Hanajo (Only Love). They also provided a light, poppy Christmas song, Chotnuni wa (First Snow), for the album.

Expansion out of Korea and SORRY, SORRY

The next year and a half that followed was very busy for Super Junior. In 2008, a new sub-group, Super Junior - M, debuted in China amidst controversy due to the group's including two new members alongside five members from Super Junior. While this group worked in China, other Super Junior sub-units continued to promote in their native Korea. Throughout 2008, however, the members constantly updated their blogs online talking about third album preparations.

Expectations were high. In the weeks leading up to the album's release, the members pleaded with the media to listen before judging, and promised the fans that they were striving to find their own sound with this release - beforehand, a major criticism of Super Junior was that they lacked a solid sound that was truly theirs.

On March 9, 2009, the song SORRY, SORRY was digitally released. An electronic dance track, the single showcased an entirely different side of Super Junior. The album itself was released three days later on March 12, and the comeback was staged the night after on KBS Music Bank, where the band performed the album's title track SORRY, SORRY and Niga Joheun Iyo (Why I like you). SORRY, SORRY was choreographed by Nick Bass, an American who has worked with acts such as Justin Timberlake and Usher in the past.

The mature third album SORRY, SORRY, released so far in two versions with different covers and booklets, delivered the promised steady sound, displaying the members' vocal talents through R&B-inspired songs, featuring much less rap and pop than previous releases. It was Super Junior's first album to debut in first place on the Hanteo Chart, selling over 150,000 copies on pre-order and a further 29,000 copies on the first day of release - a feat which beat Seo Taiji's previous record of 25,000.

The album's promotions continue and the band promises that 2009 will be Super Junior's year.

Since their debut in 2005, Super Junior has proved that its members have enough vocal and dance talents to make them one of the biggest bands of Korea in every way. We can only look forward to what these 13 members with different talents, different personalities and undeniable charisma have yet to show us.