Super Junior (Korean: 슈퍼주니어), also known as simply SJ or SuJu (Korean: 슈주), is a thirteen-member South Korean boy band formed by SM Entertainment in 2005, masterminded by Lee Soo Man.
The group initially debuted with twelve members on November 6, 2005 with the single, “TWINS (Knock Out)”. The original twelve members, from oldest to youngest, are 이특 (Leeteuk - the leader), 김희철 (Heechul), 韓庚 (Han Geng), 예성 (Yesung), 강인 (Kangin), 신동 (Shindong), 이성민 (Sungmin), 은혁 (Eunhyuk), 시원 (Siwon), 이동해 (Donghae), 려욱 (Ryeowook) and 기범 (Kibum). The Chinese member, Han Geng, was chosen among the 3,000 applicants through auditions held in China by SM Entertainment in 2001.
Many of the members had already pursued an entertainment career before Super Junior’s debut through acting, DJ-ing, and modeling. On May 23, 2006 SM Entertainment announced the addition of a new member, 조규현 (Kyuhyun), making them the thirteen-member group they are today. Moreover, before the addition of their 13th member, they were simply a project group named SuperJunior05. With his addition, the “05” was dropped and Super Junior became an official band.
Super Junior also has four sub-units with three different concentrations. The first one, Super Junior K.R.Y, consists of Kyuhyun, Ryeowook, and Yesung, and focuses on singing ballad songs. The second, Super Junior T, consists of Heechul, Kangin, Shindong, Eunhyuk, Leeteuk, and Sungmin. Super Junior T focuses on singing trot songs, an old style of Korean pop music. The third, Super Junior M, is made up of Han Geng, Siwon, Donghae, plus two SM Trainees, Henry and Zhou Mi. Kyuhyun and Ryeowook were added later. They focus on singing Mandarin Chinese songs. The fourth, Super Junior Happy, is comprised of every member of Super Junior T except for Heechul, who is replaced by Yesung. |Super Junior’s third album, Sorry, Sorry, was released on March 12, 2009. The title single off 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. On May 12, Super Junior released their new album “It’s You”. The music video for the song “It’s You” was released two days before schedule because it was leaked onto the internet with only 3 seconds missing so without any editing they released it. Three days later they released what they called “It’s You (Drama Version)”. A month later, on June 15, they released “It’s You (Dance Version)”. In the unedited and edited version Kibum only showed up in the beginning and a minute part in the middle of the videos. In the dance version Kibum again did not appear. Promotions for “It’s You” ended in early June so SM could promote SNSD’s new song. Super Junior is currently preparing for their Super Show tour. They will hold two concerts in Japan in August 2009. |
