Girls’ Generation (Hangul: 소녀시대; Hanja: 少女時代) 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 (소원, soweon), named after a song from their debut single. Theirofficial 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’SM!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 “다시 만난 세계 (Into the New World)”, which became their first single.In August 2007, the single “다시 만난 세계 (Into the New World)” was released. This single included two other songs, “Beginning” and “Perfect For You (소원)”, later renamed as Honey for their self-titled debut album “Girls’ Generation”. An instrumental of “다시 만난 세계 (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 “소녀시대 (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 “오빠나빠” (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 TownLive ’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 incellphone 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” (하하하 쏭~), 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)” (Korean: “소원을 말해봐”, “Tell Me Your Wish“), was released digitally on June 22, 2009. The mini-album includes a duet between Jessica andShinee 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 ofmobiledownloads, 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).
