Happy 6th Anniversary Super Junior!
해피 여섯째 주년 슈퍼 주니어!
History
Super Junior (Korean: 슈퍼주니어) is a South Korean boy band. Formed in 2005 by producer Lee Soo-man of SM Entertainment, the group comprised a total of thirteen members at its peak, and was once claimed to be the world's largest boy band. Super Junior originally debuted with twelve members, consisting of leader Leeteuk, Heechul, Han Geng, Yesung,Kangin, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook, and Kibum. Kyuhyun was added to the group in 2006.
Super Junior launched into international recognition following the release of their best-selling single "Sorry, Sorry" in 2009, the title song of their most critically successful album Sorry, Sorry The group has released and contributed to over 20 records with varying degrees of success. Over the years, they have been divided into smaller subgroups, 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 six music awards from the Mnet Asian Music Awards, nine from the Golden Disk Awards, and is the second singing group to win Favorite Artist Korea at the 2008 MTV Asia Awards.
In December 2009, Han Geng left the group after filing a lawsuit against their agency SM Entertainment. Heechul and Kangin announced their hiatus to fulfill their mandatory military service of two years, and Kibum temporarily parted with the group for his pursuit of an acting career, leaving Super Junior down to nine active members.
In 2000,
SM Entertainment held their first overseas casting auditions in
Beijing,
China and recruited
Han Geng, who auditioned against three thousand applicants. That same year,
Leeteuk,
Yesung and
Eunhyuk were recruited after auditioning for the company's annual casting system in
Seoul.
Sungmin and
Donghae became trainees after jointly winning first place in an SM-sponsored contest in 2001. In 2002,
Heechul and
Kangin were recruited along with
Kibum, who was discovered in
Los Angeles, California by a casting agent. Siwon became a trainee after being scouted in 2003 and Ryeowook in 2004, who was recruited into the company after winning the 2004 Chin Chin Youth Festival singing competition.
[12] Shindong and
Kyuhyun, the latter winning third place at the 2005 Chin Chin Youth Festival, were cast in 2005.
In early 2005,
Lee Soo-man announced that he had been preparing for an all-boy project group of twelve members to debut at the end of the year. He called this singing group to be "The Gateway to Stardom of Asia" as most of the members in this group were chosen for their experiences as actors,
MCs, models, and
radio hosts prior debut. Heechul and Kibum were already established actors at the time, and most of the other members had already made various kinds of appearances in television and media. Inspired by the rotational concept of Japan's girl group
Morning Musume, Lee said that his new group would also experience line-up changes, with new members replacing selected members every year to keep the group constantly young and all-rounded. This concept was then newly introduced to the
K-pop market.
For a while the group was rumored to be called O.V.E.R, the acronym for "Obey the Voice for Each Rhythm". However, before the group settled with their current name, the company simply referred to them as Junior, a representation of the members' young ages when they first became SM trainees. After the members' showcased their different talents to the company at a picnic, the company finalized their group name to Super Junior, and officially became Super Junior 05, the first generation of Super Junior.
Super Junior 05 made their pre-debut performance on the Korean channel Mnet on September 11, 2005. At the showcase, they performed various styles of
hip-hop dancing, where they danced to
B2K's "Take It to the Floor". Han Geng, Eunhyuk, and Donghae also performed a separate dance together, dancing to
Usher's "
Caught Up." However, the performance did not air on television until May 16, 2006 as a segment in the
Super Junior Show, the group's first television documentary.
The group officially 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, followed by the release of their debut album
SuperJunior05 (Twins) on December 6, 2005. The album sold 28,536 copies in the first month of release and debuted at number three in the monthly chart of December 2005.
