Super Junior History
Super Junior (슈퍼주니어; often stylized SUPERJUNIOR), sometimes referred to as SJ or SuJu (슈주), is a thirteen-member boy band from Seoul, South Korea. They are managed by producer Lee Soo Man and is currently the largest group under SM Entertainment. The members are Leeteuk (the leader), Heechul, Hangeng, Yesung, Kangin, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook, Kibum, and Kyuhyun. The Chinese member, Han Geng, was chosen among the 3,000 applicants through auditions held in China by SM Entertainment in 2001. The group initially debuted with twelve members on November 6, 2005, but since the addition of Kyuhyun in May 23, 2006, they have become a thirteen-member group.
Super Junior has released two studio albums and one CD single since 2005. Their most successful album, Don't Don, was the second best-selling album of 2007, according to the Music Industry Association of Korea. In addition, the group has earned four music awards from the M.NET/KM Music Festival, another four from the Golden Disk Awards, and is the second group to win Favorite Artist Korea at the MTV Asia Awards after JTL.
Musical history
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 boy bands H.O.T. and Shinhwa as well as the girl group S.E.S., all of which were created by SM founder and producer Lee Soo Man in the late 1990s. In 2001, the company held their first oversea casting auditions in Beijing, where they discovered Han Geng, who was chosen among 3,000 applicants. Leeteuk, Heechul, Yesung, Eunhyuk, Siwon, and Kibum were discovered under the company's annual auditions that were held in Seoul while Kang-in, Shindong, Sungmin, Donghae, and Ryeowook were discovered through SM-sponsored contests and singing competitions.
2005–2006: The Super Junior project
Super Junior 05 made their debut television appearance on SBS's 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, 2005. A CD single was scheduled to be released in November but a more complete album, SuperJunior05 (TWINS), was released on December 5, 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.[11][c] In that same month, their collaborated single with TVXQ, "Show Me Your Love," was released. "Show Me Your Love" became the best-selling record of December 2005, selling almost 50,000 copies.
After "Show Me Your Love" promotions were finished, Super Junior 05 promoted their second single from their debut album "Miracle," in February 2006. "Miracle" was the group's first single to peak at #1 on different music charts of South Korea as well as international charts from overseas countries, such as Thailand.[12] It was their last single to be promoted from SuperJunior05 (TWINS).
As promotions for "Miracle" slowly came to an end, SM Entertainment decided to begin Super Junior's line-up project by replacing some of the original members with new ones. After Super Junior 05, Super Junior 06, the second generation, would debut, and the label had begun to take actions to announce the new members. However, after the mysterious addition of a thirteenth member, the company abandoned the line-up project and the group became known as just Super Junior, without the suffix "05".
2006–2007: "U" and breakthrough success
On May 23, 2006, SM Entertainment revealed a new member Kyuhyun, who was discovered through a singing competition in 2005, as the thirteenth and youngest member. The new thirteen-member group released their new single, "U" online for free download on May 25, 2006 in Super Junior's 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 CD single "U" with a total of three tracks was officially released on June 6, 2006, eventually selling over 81,000 units by 2007, selling more than their first album.[16] During this time, an official fanclub was created for the group, E.L.F., an alphabetism derived from the phrase "Ever-lasting Friends." Super Junior's official color became pearl sapphire blue.
The title song "U" yielded number-one spots for five consecutive weeks on two of Korea's top music programs for the first time in the group's career. The song was crowned as SBS Popular Songs Mutizen Song on the second week of release, being the first award for the group since debut. The song then stayed as Mutizen Song for three consecutive weeks on the same program, also simultaneously grabbing two top awards from M.NET's M!Countdown for two weeks. Before promotions for "U" ended, "Dancing Out" was released on July 20, 2006 as part of SMTown's annual summer album, grabbing two awards as soon as it was released. "U" gained critical success, and Super Junior collected over seven awards in five of South Korea's top music award ceremonies as 2006 came to a close, winning Best New Group and popularity awards.
As 2007 approached, the group began to branch out to different splinter groups. Super Junior-K.R.Y, the first subgroup of Super Junior that debuted on November 5, 2006, began to give separate performances away from the group to promote their new songs in the latter months of 2006. In February arrived a second subgroup, Super Junior-T. In March, several members of Super Junior participated in an original soundtrack for the first time, singing the opening and ending themes "Success" and "H.I.T" for the Korean miniseries, H.I.T. On April 19, 2007, four members of Super Junior, Leeteuk, Shindong, Eunhyuk, and Kyuhyun, were injured in a car accident that deeply affected the group's schedules and progress throughout the year. Being the most injured, Kyuhyun was not discharged from the hospital until four months later, therefore unable to participate in the group's single for SMTown, "Full of Happiness" (행복) that was released in July. Nonetheless, the cover from the former boy band H.O.T accelerated quickly in singles charts in both South Korea and Thailand and soon became a number-one hit in Thailand's international charts a month later.
2007: Don't Don
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, and was in close competition with Lee Soo Young's Set It Down and Wheesung's eternal essence of music WHEESUNG 5 that were released earlier in September. It finished the September monthly album sales as number one, surpassing both Lee Soo Young and Wheesung. 60,000 units were shipped by the first week of release and additional copies were printed. After three months of release, Don't Don sold 164,058 copies, making it Super Junior's best-selling album. It was also the second best-selling album of 2007, falling 26,940 copies short of SG Wannabe's The Sentimental Chord.
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, an awards ceremony based on record sales success. 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.