Around the turn of the millennium, Korean pop culture and entertainment started popping up everywhere in Asia. Korean Cinema saw a new renaissance with the domestic and regional popularity of movies like My Sassy Girl, Friend, and My Wife is a Gangster. The music industry ushered in a new generation of teen idols whose fame extended beyond Korea. Most significantly, Korean dramas invaded televisions across Asia, with series like Winter Sonata and Dae Jang Geum reaching an unprecedented level of Pan-Asian popularity. The fervor for Korean dramas and Korean television stars like Bae Yong Joon, Choi Ji Woo, and Lee Young Ae was so great, the phenomenon was dubbed the Korean Wave. Fast forward to 2010, Korean entertainment is still spreading its sphere of influence in Asia and beyond, but the focus is shifting away from Korean dramas. There’s a new wave sweeping out of Korea, and this wave is led by K-pop.
The K-pop wave isn’t content with just niche markets, dubbed soap operas, and Japanese fan meetings, not when domestic album sales are flagging and there’s a world out there for the taking. We’re now in a time when Rain can star in a Hollywood movie, Dong Bang Shin Ki can top the Oricon charts, Wonder Girls can tour with the Jonas Brothers, and Nobody and Sorry Sorry can be heard from every karaoke box in Asia. K-pop is more popular than ever in Asia, and thanks to the Internet and the proliferation of online social media, it’s also traveled farther outside of Asia and inspired dedicated fanbases in every region imaginable. Standing at the forefront of this K-pop wave is entertainment juggernaut SM Entertainment.
Founded in 1995 by former singer Lee Soo Man, SM Entertainment has produced some of the biggest K-pop stars of the past decade including H.O.T, S.E.S, BoA, Shinhwa, Dong Bang Shin Ki, Super Junior, and Girls’ Generation. Though K-pop’s other two giants JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment also have their own formidable lineup of stars, as a talent label SM Entertainment is clearly the biggest player in K-pop. According to year-to-date domestic sales figures reported by the Hanteo chart in mid-August, SM Entertainment artists own the top seven best-selling albums of 2010 so far. SM does everything bigger – bigger groups, bigger stars, bigger sales, bigger fandoms, bigger controversies, bigger heartbreaks – and it’s been doing it bigger and better than the rest for a while.Super Junior, Strength in Numbers
With TVXQ splitting their time between Korea and Japan, SM introduced another group in 2005, Super Junior 05. Comprised of a whopping 12 members, the band was originally conceived as a rotating-membership unit, with plans for a different “Super Junior 06″ lineup the following year. The group’s great popularity after the release of their first album, however, prompted SM to rethink their plans. Much to the relief of fans, in 2006 Super Junior became an official group, with one more member added (the youngest, Kyu Hyun) to bring the count to 13. As K-pop’s biggest group, Super Junior vaunted to the top with the hit single U, and they’ve stayed there ever since.
Super Junior’s smorgasbord of vastly different talents and personalities opened up whole new possibilities. Like in most groups, there were some members better known for singing (Kyu Hyun, Ryeo Wook, Ye Sung), dancing (Dong Hae, Eun Hyuk, Han Geng, Shin Dong), and rapping (Ki Bum, Eun Hyuk). But Super Junior’s deep lineup also included actors (Ki Bum, Hee Chul, Si Won) and talkers who quickly emerged as new-generation emcees (Lee Teuk, Kang In, Hee Chul, Shin Dong). The group’s hosting and variety show prowess, in particular, created an image different than the typical idols. Super Junior is also the first group to debut with a foreign member, Han Geng, starting a precedent that is now quite common in K-pop.
Super Junior’s strength in numbers made them a formidable force that grew with every album. The releases of Don’t Don, Sorry Sorry, and their most recent Bonamana were all big events in K-pop. Sorry Sorry, in particularly, launched the super-sized boy band to a new level of fame in Asia. Other than group and individual activities, Super Junior have also formed sub-units targeting different musical styles. K.R.Y, the first Super Junior unit introduced, is a ballad group, while Super Junior T tackles trot and Super Junior Happy makes, er, happy music.
The most significant Super Junior unit though is its Chinese spin-off, Super Junior M. With a Chinese member in the group, Super Junior has had a foot in the Chinese market since their debut. In 2008, SM made a full-fledged foray into Chinese music with the formation of Super Junior M comprised of Han Geng, Si Won, Ryeo Wook, Dong Hae, Kyu Hyun, plus two additional new members, Chinese-Canadian Henry Lau and Mainland native Zhou Mi. The addition of two non-Super Junior members into Super Junior M created a good deal of controversy among Super Junior’s famously dedicated fanbase, but the project went ahead with the members spending significant time promoting and performing in China. Most fans were won over by the time they released their first mini-album Super Girl which garnered the group a Golden Melody nomination.
Other than Super Junior M, SM also debuted Chinese female artist Zhang Li Yin in 2006. The young R&B singer’s Korean single Timeless won her the Best New Solo Artist award at the M.net Asian Music Awards, a first for a foreign artist. After making her mark in Korea, she released her first Chinese album I Will two years later.
please copy ALL the below information when redistributing
DO NOT CREDIT YOURSELF!!!
by 
