Girls' Generation Picked Korea's Favorite Singers

Girls' Generation Picked Korea's Favorite Singers
Pop group Girls' Generation have been voted Korea's favorite singers for the second straight year.


In a nationwide survey by Gallup Korea of 3,401 people aged 13 or over, 31.5 percent said they liked Girls' Generation most.

The nine-member girl group took first place among all age groups, from teenagers to those in their 50s. The band's hit songs "Hoot" and "Oh!" ranked first and second on the list of most favorite songs.

Boy band 2PM came in second, followed by Jang Yoon-jung, Tae Jin-ah and Kara.

The most popular new singers of the year were girl group Miss A and Huh Gak, the winner of the "Superstar K2" audition TV show.

SNSD’s YoonA reveals her body weight for the first time

SNSD’s YoonA reveals her body weight for the first time
After the shocking truth fans received on SNSD’s brutal diet schedules, it seems like no understatement that the ladies of SNSD have the skinniest bodies in the k-pop industry (with some exceptions). This fact has been proven once again on today’s Family Outing Season 2 as the group’s resident doe, YoonA, revealed her true body weight at village sauna! No excitements yet, guys – she’s covered from head to toe.
To give a brief summary on what happened, YoonA and her newfound “family” have gone to a local mud flat at SooRak Village to engage in a brutal fight to earn the title of an “Honorary Citizen.” After getting soaked in dirt, they  headed to nearby public spa to wash off. Before entering, they found a scale sitting in its lonesome, and decided to put YoonA on it. The green digital numbers then began to soar… and stopped at 48.5 kg. That’s converted to merely 107 pounds, including her wet clothes!
After looking at the stunning numbers, Shin Bong Sun yelled, “YoonA, you’re so skinny! I’m not measuring mine. Thanks for sharing yours!” and escaped her turn to stand on the scale.

Considering her tall height of 5″5 – which computes to an approximate number of 17.8 in Body Mass Index – YoonA is definitely categorized as underweight. Although her thin body undoubtedly defines hotness, she should definitely gain more weight for the sake of her health!

Kim Taeyeon's history & legendary performance of 'SNSD' before debut

Kim Taeyeon's history & legendary performance of 'SNSD' before debut
SM Academy(Also known as Starlight Academy previously) is the academy for aspiring entertainers in K-entertainment. It is owned by SM but it is ran as a separate entity and enrolling in the academy does not give you any advantage to become an SM trainee(The academy does give its outstanding students opportunities to participate in some internal SM events like showcases).


The president of SM Academy Lee Solim, was asked who was her most memorable student over the years.

"To answer who was the most memorable student, SNSD Taeyeon was the most memorable. When Taeyeon was in 2nd year of middle school, she showed up holding her dad's hand. Considering she's from Jeonju and in middle school she was too young, and she had to be accompanied by her dad. Her dad ran an eyeglasses shop and he told me this. He does not plan to have her become an entertainer or a singer, he knew very well how difficult that was. And it would be tiring for him to drive her up here each Sunday so he told me to persuade her to give up if I thought she had no basic talent and it wouldn't work out for her.


So I told him 'Mr Kim, then we shall check out her singing'. And she sang, and well, she wasn't that good like she is now. But her voice was clean. If she works hard she can do well, that's what I felt. I asked Taeyeon there and she said she practices alone by singing along to songs on her computer.



The child was too young I wasn't sure how to set up her practice routines. But I asked her if she can work hard and she replied that she can work hard. So I told her dad 'It may be hard for you but the child loves to sing, and even if I make her quit here she will continue on her own. She has gleaming eyes, she has a good voice why don't we let her practice here for six months or a year and see how it goes.' So her dad brought her from Jeonju every Sunday and he waited until the evening while she received the lessons then took her home. He labored liked that for a year."



I think a bit of a twist of fortune is needed for a person to move on to better things, at that time Taeyeon won first place in Singing Jjang category at the SM Youth Best Competition and received a contract. During the last semester, one of our instructors 'The One' who was the vocal trainer, featured Taeyeon in his song (You Bring Me Joy) since she worked so hard for the year and she had good voice. The song came out great and with good responses she moved on to SM. There she improved so much. She worked hard too. And she lost lot of weight. SNSD Taeyeon is the one who is most memorable."


2nd year middle school student 'Kim Taeyeon' was enrolled in the Vocal Program at the Academy then in 2004 received her contract with SM. After 3 years of training she would debut officially as 'SoNyuhShiDae'
 

Girls' Generation and Kara are handled inappropriately in a Japanese manga?

Girls' Generation and Kara are handled inappropriately in a Japanese manga?
 Japanese manga titled "An Analysis on the K-pop Boom Lies" by Hanaya Matoya and Shamoji have become extremely popular in Japan, making Korean fans extremely irate. The manga is about a former K-pop idol hostess explaining to her customer and a reporter about the "real" story of K-pop, but all of the stories are made up.

The manga talks about how Girls' Generation and KARA have both made their way to the top by having sex with important people. It also accuses the Korean government of paying a large Japanese entertainment company 1,600,000,000,000 JPY (19,196,160,000.00 USD) per year to make the phenomenon of "Hallyu."

The manga also asserts that only 100 fans were at the airport when Girls' Generation entered Japan, instead of the 800 that was reported. It claims that 700 were actually employees of K-pop companies. The manga shows Kara doing the Mister butt dance with no clothes on, brings up the Korean "slave contracts", and also talks about Jang Jayeon who committed suicide in 2009 because of sexual abuse.

The Japanese community 2ch commented that this was "completely the truth", "their songs are in Japanese, how is it K-pop." But some people have said, "people that draw this sort of thing are just looking for attention."

Korean fans have said, "this thing is trash. It totally fits that country," and "the companies have to sue for defamation of character." Some have decided to be more optimistic and said, "I think this just proves K-pop groups' popularity," and that "no response is the best response."

from - http://www.koreaboo.com/index.html/_/general/girls-generation-and-kara-are-handled-inap-r2519

SNSD | So Nyuh Shi Dae | Girls’ Generation | SoShi 2010: Second album and Japan debut

In early 2010, the group was chosen to sing SBS’s new logo song “Naeireul Bomnida” (Korean: “내일을 봅니다”, “Looking at Tomorrow“).
Later in January, SM Entertainment confirmed the release of Oh!, the group’s second full-length album, released on January 28.The lead single “Oh!“, was digitally released on January 25 with the music video being released two days later. The song proved to be popular topping various charts upon release. On January 30, the group started promotions with the recording of MBC’s Show! Music Core. The performance experienced a blackout near the end, to which MBC made the whole performance available online. In the KBS’s music show, Music Bank, the song ‘Oh!’ won the award for best-selling song for the first half of 2010; wherein the previous year they also won the award with their mega-hit “Gee“.
Starting from March 11, 2010, photos of the members were released online showcasing a dark concept, so called “Black Girls’ Generation”. The “Black SoShi” nickname is a play on the Korean group name (So Nyeo Shi Dae). A teaser video was released on March 16, with the new single released as a digital single on March 17. The music video for “Run Devil Run” was released on March 17, and the group performed first on KBS’s Music Bank. With the combined sales of both the full album “Oh!” and the repackage “Run Devil Run“, Girls’ Generation sold more albums than any other artist in the first half of 2010. The music videos for both “Oh!” and “Run Devil Run” made it into GOMTV‘s 2010 First Half Top 10 ranking, the group having attracted over 13 million views in 6 months.
They have also recently made a new song titled “CABI” to promote The Caribbean Bay with 2PM. Members Yuri, Yoona, and Seohyun were the main actors each being paired with 2PM members Nichkhun, Taecyeon, and Chansung respectively. All the other members made a cameo towards the end in the music video. The song was sung by Girls’ Generation and 2PM. The music video was released on YouTube on May 20, 2010.
Mid-June, it was announced that the group had signed contracts in May, and would begin working under Universal Music Japan‘s record label Nayutawave Records for their Japanese promotions, with their first Japanese single expected to be released in September 2010. Girls’ Generation began promotion in Japan in August. “少女時代到来～初来日記念盤～” (Girls’ Generation’s Arrival ～ First Time in Japan Commemoration Disc ～), a DVD featuring seven of the group’s music videos as well as special bonus footage was released on August 11, with the special edition of the DVD containing a pink glowstick as well as a pass to the Girls’ Generation debut at the Tokyo Ariake Colliseum on August 25. According to Universal Music Japan, the DVD had reached considerable success even before physical release, the pre-orders having sold out. In the first week after release, the DVD sold 23,000 copies, making no.4 on the weekly DVD Oricon ranking

and no.3 on the weekly music DVD ranking, making Girls’ Generation the first female k-pop group to make the Oricon DVD Top-5 ranking.Amidst their Japanese activities, the group also participated in the SMTown Live ’10 World Tour alongside their label-mates on August 21 at Seoul Jamsil Olympic Stadium. And then in Shanghai and Los Angeles on later dates.
On August 25, the group held their first showcase in Tokyo Ariake Colliseum. With an initial 10,000 fans invited, it was reported to be the most large-scale plan for a Korean artist debuting in Japan. However, due to high number of expected attendees, the group’s management announced that the showcase would take place three times in the same day rather than once to accommodate the estimated 20,000 fans. The group sang 5 of their Korean tracks at each of the showcases, the total number of attendees over all three shows estimated to be at least 22,000. At this showcase, the Genie Japanese music video was also revealed publicly for the first time, the teaser having been released a few days prior on August 20.
Their Japanese debut single “Genie“ peaked at the #5 spot on the same day of its release on the Oricon Charts and later rose to the #2 position some time later, earning the group a #4 position on the Oricon weekly ranking The group also hit the number #1 spots on Japan iTunes’ music video chart and both the Rekochoku daily video clip chart and incoming movie daily ranking chart a day later. With pre-orders amounting to 80,000, the single sold an estimated 45,000 copies in the first week after release, breaking the record for foreign artists debuting in Japan. The single also placed high on Japan’s Billboard chart, ranking #4 on the comprehensive Hot 100 chart, #5 on the Hot Single Sales Chart and #1 on the Hot Top Airplay chart. On October 20, 2010, the group released their second Japanese single, “Gee”.
Girls’ Generation also had success in Japan with their Japanese 2nd single “Gee“. They took 2nd place and were crowned the first ever overseas girl group to claim this position. On October 26, 2010 it was announced that their Japanese 2nd single “Gee” reaches #1 on the Oricon Daily Chart making them the first non-Japanese Asian girl group to reach number 1 on the daily chart.
On October 27, 2010, Girls’ Generation’s label SM Entertainment released the group’s third mini album titled Hoot. The single“Hoot” was released on October 25 at 10am KST through various online music websites. Prior to their comeback, after just releasing “Hoot” on October 25, it took less than 7 minutes for “Hoot” to dominate 7 major Korean realtime music charts, topping every single one of them at #1 include Monkey3, Dosirak, Melon, Soridaba, Cyworld, Bugs and Daum. SM Entertainment released Hoot MV on October 28, 2010 on SM homepage and their official youtube channel. The MV also featuring Super Junior’s member Choi Siwon. In less then 24 hours “Hoot” MV hits more than 1 million viewers on Youtube. They first won their performance on Music Bank on 5th November 2010

from - http://snsdkorean.com/snsd-members/

SNSD | So Nyuh Shi Dae | Girls’ Generation | SoShi 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 fashion magazine “Elle“. The program began airing in early October. During their absence from the music scene, they appeared in many commercials for MapleStory 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 MBC 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 (Samsung Anycall) 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 consecutive weeks, previously set by Jewelry‘s “One More Time, which had 7 wins. They won the award for best-selling song for the first half 2009 for “Gee“. Promotions for the song ended at the end of March.
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”, literally “Tell Me Your Wish”), the mini album was released digitally on June 22, 2009. The mini-album includes a duet between Jessica and Shinee member Onew called “One Year Later”.
On May 3, 2009. Girls Generation was starred in their new reality show “SNSD Horror Movie Factory“, with the premier episode receiving a viewership rating of 3.3%. The show was then cancelled after 6 episodes due to low ratings.
Since June 23, 2009, Girls’ Generation are starring Cable TV program called “SNSD’s Hello Baby” of KBS Joy, where they are taking care of a child and somewhat experience how motherhood is like. In that show, they take care of a boy name “Cho Kyungsan” (Korean: “조경산”), and each week they (or fathers, male guests who come out time to time) select “The Best Mom” and “the Worst Mom” among the members according to their work for the day. Despite the late-night time slot, the show received fairly high ratings and had been extended for several episodes. The show ended on November 17, 2009.
On June 26, 2009, Girls’ Generation’s comeback performance was recorded

on KBS’s Music Bank. The group then had their return performances on MBC’s Music Core and SBS’s Inkigayo on June 27 and 28, 2009. 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 10, 2009 episode of KBS Music Bank. Their second award was claimed at the July 12, 2009 episode of SBS Inkigayo. The group finished promotions for “Tell Me Your Wish (Genie)” in August 2009.
On October 7, Girls’ Generation, along with label-mate f(x) released a digital single named “Chocolate Love” for the 4th edition of the Blacklabel series LG CYON phone, “Chocolate”. Girls’ Generation sang the “Retro Pop Ver.” of the song while f(x) sang the “Electronic Pop Ver.”
In July, selected members, alongside selected Super Junior members, released the song “S.E.O.U.L. Song“. The music video was released as part of South Korea’s tourism initiative.
The group also announced its first solo tour, with two Korean dates in December and other Asian locations to follow. The Korean dates sold out in 3 minutes. The concert is titled “Into the New World : 1st Asia Tour“ after the name of their debut single. Due to the success of the first concerts, the group confirmed that they will be holding encore concerts on February 27 and 28

SNSD | So Nyuh Shi Dae | Girls’ Generation 2007: Debut and first album

2007: Debut and first album

In July 2007, Girls’ Generation had their first performance on Inkigayo. The song the girls performed was called “Into the New World” (Korean: 다시 만난 세계), which became their first single. A show documenting the girls’ debut titled “M.Net’s Girls Go To School” was filmed during this time. This documentary helped the girls appeal to the Korean audience as they rose to controversy.

In August 2007, the single “Into the New World” was released. This single included two other songs, “Beginning” and “Perfect for You” (Korean: 소원), later the song renamed to “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 Inkigayo, 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” (Korean: 소녀시대), a cover of Lee Seung-Chul (Korean: 이승철)’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 8th 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.net 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” (“Korean: 오빠 나빠”, literally “Bad Brother”, although contextually it refers to an older male friend).
Girls’ Generation, along with fellow 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

from - http://snsdkorean.com/snsd-members/

SNSD | So Nyuh Shi Dae | Girls’ Generation | SoShi

So I watched Ellie’s vlog about how ‘SNSD should be 4 not 9‘. I love Ellie and her K-pop vlog, as Cindy said, she always has interesting take on K-pop — this one is no exception. I obviously love all the nine girls as one group, but even I once thought about how… ridiculous, for lack of better words, it was for having nine girls on one group. I mean, really, nine girls. Back then, all I can imagine was cat-fights, lots of it.
Ellie said about making a smaller group, actually that was SM Entertainment initial plan. On Ya Shim Man Man, Sooyoung revealed how they were supposed to debut under smaller group, but under a collective group of some sort — namely Yeoja Danchae. I guess it’s like how 2AM and 2PM are under OneDay. Or rather, like how Super Junior has sub-units of Super Junior-M, Super Junior-Happy, Super Junior-T, and Super Junior-KRY.
I don’t know why SM changed the plan and stick to one large group of nine girls. People might say how SNSD would do better if they’re a smaller group and what not. But I have to disagree. I think one of their main charms is that they have nine members, with nine distinct charms and personalities ♥. Plus, it’s not like SM put nine random girl-trainees into the group… these girls went through a lot of audition and performed in a lot of showcases to be a part of So Nyuh Shi Dae.


You guys might have heard how some celebrities said that they were supposed to be in SNSD. The most notable ones are prolly actress Lee Yeon-hee and girl-group member Park So-yeon of T-ara. Well, for Yeonhee and Soyeon’s case, apparently they really were a part of SNSD, sort of. I read this post about SNSD’s roster history at SSF awhile ago, and I think today would be a nice time to look back at how SM Ent came up with the final line up of nine girls

So Nyuh Shi Dae | SNSD | Girls’ Generation

Girls’ Generation (Korean: Hangul – 소녀시대; Hanja -  少女時代) is a popular nine-member South Korean girl group formed by SM Entertainment in 2007. The members are, in order of announcement to be in the group, Yoona, Tiffany, Yuri, Hyoyeon, Sooyoung, Seohyun, Taeyeon (leader), Jessica, and Sunny. They are commonly referred to as SNSD, the acronym of the group’s Korean name So-Nyeo Shi-Dae or So-Nyuh Shi-Dae, Chinese name Shao Nü Shi Dai, Japanese name ShōJo JiDai. They are also referred as SoShi which is the abbreviation of the groups’ Korean name. The group’s official fan-club is named as  S♥NE (소원) pronounced as “So-won” which means “wish” in Korean.

Girls’ Generation had their official debut stage on August 5, 2007 with their first single “Into the New World”. The group has released two albums and various singles, which went on to achieve commercial success. Their 2009 single “Gee” holds the record for the longest-running #1 song on KBS’s Music Bank, at 9 weeks. That year also saw the girls winning various awards, including consecutive Artist of the Year (Daesang) awards at the Seoul Music Awards, Golden Disk Awards, Melon Music Awards, and the Korean Cultural Entertainment Awards.
The members of the group have had various activities as solo entertainers — acting in various video clips, dramas, and musicals; hosting various reality-variety shows; and releasing solo singles for drama soundtracks

from - http://snsdkorean.com/snsd-members/