Girls’ Generation is a South Korean nine-member girl group formed by SM Entertainment in 2007. Its members include (in order of official announcement) Yoona, Tiffany, Yuri, Hyoyeon, Sooyoung, Seohyun, Taeyeon (the leader) , Jessica, and Sunny. International Girls’ Generation fans usually refer to the group as SNSD, the acronym of the group’s Korean name So Nyeo Shi Dae. Many of the members had already pursued entertainment careers before the group’s debut through music videos, commercials, and others. Their official fanclub is known as S♡NE named after a song from their debut single. Their official ballon color is pastel rose pink and while other idols have round shaped balloons, Girls’ Generation balloons are heart shaped to match their fanclub name.
The group has sold over 100,000 copies each of their first three albums, a first for female groups in South Korea.
Pre-debut
Each member was professionally trained in singing and dancing, but some were also selected to be trained in acting and modeling. Many of the members already had made names for themselves in the Korean entertainment industry through their participation in magazine ads, television commercials, and small television appearances. Before the official release of the group name, Girls’ Generation, it was rumored that the group would be named “Super Girls” after their so-called counterpart, Super Junior.
2007: Debut and first album
In July 2007, Girls’ Generation had their first performance on M.NET’S M!Countdown. Although this performance was never broadcast on television, many videos were shot by fans and uploaded onto the internet. The song the girls performed was called “Into the New World”, which became their first single.
In August 2007, the single “Into the New World” was released. This single included two other songs, “Beginning” and “Perfect For You”, later renamed as Honey for their self-titled debut album “Girls’ Generation”. An instrumental of “Into the New World” was also included.
The group began promoting the single soon after its release. Girls’ Generation performed their single on SBS’s Popular Songs, MBC’s Show! Music Core, and on KBS’s Music Bank.
After a short break, the group’s first full album was released in late autumn 2007, with the lead single “Girls’ Generation”, a cover of Lee Seung Chul’s hit. Promotion for the single started in early November. Marked by dance routines and vocals, “Girls’ Generation” was a hit for the group, and the album has sold 121,143 copies to date, placing 12th in the year-end charts. In early 2008, Girls’ Generation began promoting their second single, “Kissing You”. The music video featured Donghae from Super Junior. This song achieved the #1 spot in the three main TV music rankings—SBS Inkigayo, M.Countdown! and KBS Music Bank.
In March 2008, the album was re-released and re-titled Baby Baby. A third single, “Baby Baby”, was used to promote the album. A digital EP featuring Jessica, Tiffany, and Seohyun was released on April 2008, titled Roommate. The single from the mini-album is (Oppa Nappa) (literally “Bad Brother”, although contextually it refers to an older male friend).
Girls’ Generation, along with fellow SM artists such as BoA, TVXQ, Super Junior, CSJH the Grace, Zhang Liyin, SHINee and other SM artists participated in SM Town Live ’08. The tour expanded its route to South Korea, Thailand, and China.
2008–2009: Other activities, return with mini-albums
It was announced in autumn 2008 that Girls’ Generation would be starring in a reality show on M.Net. Titled Factory Girl, the show chronicles the girls working as interns at Elle Korea. The program began airing in early October.During their absence from the music scene, they appeared in many commercials for Maple Story and Mabinogi. It was then announced that the group’s first mini-album, Gee, would be released in January 2009. A teaser video was released in January 2009 and the first single “Gee” released soon after. Interest in the song rose after the digital release, topping Cyworld’s hourly music chart on the release day. The song also went #1 on all major digital music charts within two days.
The group began its album promotion on January 2009 on Show! Music Core. They sang their new single, “Gee”, and “Him Nae/Way To Go”, another track from the Gee mini-album. This song is a remake of the song “Haptic Motion” that was used in cellphone advertisements and is a mix of bubblegum pop and punk rock. Meanwhile, questions were raised when the group did not appear on KBS’s Music Bank with “Gee”, even after winning #1 on the music chart show.
“Gee” is the record holder for the longest-running #1 on music portal M.Net (for 8 weeks), surpassing the previous record of 6 weeks set by the Wonder Girls’ “Nobody”. They also broke the record on KBS’s music show Music Bank by being #1 for 9 weeks, previously set by Jewelry’s “One More Time, which had 7 wins. Promotions for the song ended at the end of March.
“Gee” was a hit in Thailand as well, holding the number one position on the International Chart for six weeks straight. The girls were able to perform it at the Pattaya International Musical Festival, along with “Into the New World” and “Kissing You”.
Like the Wonder Girls’ “So Hot” and “Nobody”, 2NE1′s “Fire”, Super Junior’s “Sorry Sorry,” and Lee Hyori’s “U-Go-Girl”, “Gee” was featured on perezhilton.com.
On April 14, 2009, Girls’ Generation released a digital single called “Hahaha” which was produced by Samsung for their “Hahaha” campaign. The song was created with the intention of lifting people’s spirits up during hard economic times.
After a short break, SM Entertainment announced that the girls would be back with a new single and showing a “Marine Girl” concept; the song, titled “Sowoneul Malhaebwa (Genie)” “Tell Me Your Wish“, was released digitally on June 22, 2009. The mini-album includes a duet between Jessica and Shinee member Onew. The group’s first performance is scheduled for June 26 on KBS’s Music Bank.
On June 26, 2009, Girls’ Generation’s comeback performance was recorded on KBS’s Music Bank. They won the award for best-selling song in the first-half of the year 2009 for their song “Gee”. Girls’ Generation other comeback performance was recorded on MBC’s ‘Music Core’ and SBS’s ‘Inkigayo’ on June 27 and 28 of 2009 respectively.
Girls’ Generation’s 2nd mini-album “Genie” was released on June 29, 2009.
Their first win for their single “Tell Me Your Wish (Genie)” was obtained at the July 10th, 2009 episode of KBS Music Bank, acclaiming a total of 17995 points in areas of mobile downloads, album sales and others, beating out rookie group 4minute and ballad singer Seo Tai-ji. They have set the record of having scored the most points in Music Bank history, beating their seniors TVXQ who got 16,404 for ‘Mirotic’ last year. Their second award was claimed at the July 12th, 2009 episode of SBS Inkigayo (Popular Song).
Members
Taeyeon
Kim Taeyeon (Hangul 김태연; Hanja 金泰姸), known officially as Taeyeon, was born on March 9, 1989. She is a South Korean singer, known for being the leader of 9-member girl group Girls’ Generation (소녀시대), formed by SM Entertainment in 2007.
Jessica
Jessica was born and raised in San Francisco, California, and is fluent in English. She released two singles alongside with SeoHyun and Tiffany: “Oppa Nappa” (Korean: 오빠 나빠), and “Mabinogi (It’s Fantastic!)”. Jessica also stars in Kim Jo-han’s music video “Love is Late, I’m Sorry” and is featured in 8Eight’s song, “I Love You”.
Sunny
Sunny was a trainee under a different entertainment company before she transferred into SM Entertainment. After several months of training under SM Entertainment in 2007, Sunny debuted as a member of Girls’ Generation that same year. She was a co-DJ of ChunJi (Korean: 천방지축 라디오, literally Reckless Radio), along with Sungmin (Korean: 성민), of Super Junior until the broadcast ended on the July 30, 2008.
Tiffany - Human Jukebox
Tiffany was born and raised in Diamond Bar, California and is fluent in English. She was discovered in the SM Starlight Casting System 2004 in Los Angeles and began her training under the label until the debut of Girls’ Generation. Along with SeoHyun and Jessica, she released a single, “Oppa Nappa” (Korean: 오빠 나빠) and “Mabinogi [It's Fantastic!]“.
Hyoyeon - Dancing Queen
Hyoyeon was BoA’s silhouette during a dance break in BoA’s “Over the Top” performance in MKMF 2005. Hyoyeon once attended a hip hop dance school that specializes in waving, popping, locking, and animation. Prior to her debut, Hyoyeon traveled to Beijing, China in 2004 with Super Junior’s Siwon to learn Mandarin and more about Chinese culture.
Yuri - Black Pearl
Yuri joined the label when she took 1st place in the 2001 1st SM Youth Best Dancer Contest. She appeared in TVXQ’s “Beautiful Life” music video and had a small role as a ballerina in Super Junior’s first movie, Attack on the Pin-Up Boys. She also had a small role in a television segment, “The King’s Boyfriend”, which was part of the 2005–2006 KMTV Super Junior documentary, Super Junior Show. Yuri also played a part in the sitcom Unstoppable Marriage
Sooyoung – ShikShin
Before Sooyoung’s audition to Girls’ Generation, she made a brief debut in Japan as a singer in the group called “Route φ”. She first debuted with Marina Takahashi with the song “Start”. She was previously a DJ of ChunJi, literally Reckless Radio), along with Sungmin of Super Junior but was soon replaced by Sunny due to schedule conflicts.
Yoona
Before her debut with the girl group Girls’ Generation, Yoona had been well known in the entertainment industry. She began to film commercials and model for various magazines when she was a trainee.
Seohyun - Maknae
Seohyun is the youngest member of SNSD and is skilled in piano. She was a 2004 SMART uniform model with TVXQ. Along with Jessica and Tiffany, they released a single “Oppa Nappa” (Korean: 오빠 나빠), and “Mabinogi (It’s Fantastic!)”. On February 17, 2009, her duet with trot singer Joo Hyun-Mi (Korean: 주현미), was digitally released, called “JjaRaJaJja” Other Information
- Also known as : Double G, SNSD
- Origin : Seoul, South Korea
- Genre(s) : K-pop, Teen pop, Dance-pop
- Years active : 2007 ~ Present
- Label(s) : SM Entertainment
- Associated acts : SM Town
Discography
Studio albums
- 2007: Girls’ Generation
- 2010: Oh!
Repackaged albums
- 2008: Baby Baby (repackaged edition of Girls’ Generation)
- 2010: Run Devil Run (repackaged edition of Oh!)
Mini albums (EPs)
- 2009: Gee
Special albums
- 2008: Sweet Memories with Girls’ Generation
- 2008: Heart 2 Heart with Girls’ Generation
Single albums
- 2007: The First Single Album (also known as Into the New World)
- 2010: Genie
Digital Releases
- September 13, 2007: “Into the New World” Remix
- March 11, 2008: “Kissing You” Rhythmer Remix Vol.1
- April 7, 2008: “오빠 나빠(Oppa Nappa)” Roommate 1st Digital Single : Jessica, Tiffany, Seohyun
- May 8, 2008: “Haptic Motion”
- August 1, 2008: “Mabinogi
- February 15, 2009: Gee Remix
- February 17, 2009: “짜라자짜” Seohyun & Ju Hyun Mi Feat. Davichi
- March 30, 2009: “A Girl, Meets Love” : Tiffany and K. Will
- April 15, 2009: “Samsung’s HaHaHa Song Campaign”
- May 9, 2009:”The Blue” Son Jichang ft. Tiffany and Sooyoung
Awards
- Song of the Month for the month of August from Cyworld <Into the New World> – 2007
- 2007 M.NET Golden Disk Awards: Anycall Newbie Award on December 13th – 2007
- 2007 M.NET Golden Disk Awards: Anycall Popularity Award on December 13th – 2007
- 17th Seoul Gayo Awards: High1 Music Award on January 31st – 2008
- 17th Seoul Gayo Awards: Best New Artist Award on January 31st – 2008
- Song of the Month for the month of January from Cyworld <Gee> – 2009
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