Wonder Girls
The Wonder Girls (Korean: 원더걸스) are a South Korean girl group.They are produced by singer-songwriter Park Jin-Young and are signed to his talent agency, JYP Entertainment. Each of the five original members were selected through auditions. Debuting in early 2007, they became popular in the fall of that year with the song “Tell Me.”
History
Korean debut
The Wonder Girls debuted on February 10, 2007 on Show! Music Core, singing “Irony”, the hip-hop single from their debut mini-album, The Wonder Begins. The mini-album went on to become a minor hit, selling 11,454 copies in 2007.
Throughout the rest of 2007, however, the Wonder Girls were beset by various injuries and health problems. On June 25, Sohee was sidelined for a month after tearing a knee ligament falling off a motorcycle during the filming of 뜨거운 것이 좋아 (I Like It Hot). The remaining four members continued performing until late July, when Hyuna was removed from the group due to their concern over her health—in particular, chronic gastroenteritis which had her hospitalized briefly in March and April.
Rise to popularity
On September 5, 2007, Good Entertainment, the talent agency for the popular boy band Shinhwa, sent their trainee Yoo bin to JYP Entertainment as a replacement for Hyuna. She made her debut three days later in the group’s live performance of “Tell Me” on Music Bank .
Their first full-length album, The Wonder Years, was released the following week, on September 13, 2007, with “Tell Me.” Due to the last-minute addition of Yubin, the album version does not contain her part. However, the performance version of the song was reworked to include a bridge with Yubin’s rap. The single was a hit and reached number one on various Korean television and internet music charts, including KBS’s Music Bank.
The choreography for the song was simple and widely imitated: by October, many fan performances of the dance circulated on video sharing sites such as YouTube and Daum, including one by a group of policemen who were eventually profiled on SBS’s Star King. The dance became so popular it was known as the ‘Tell Me Virus’ and earned them the title of ‘Korea’s Little Sisters’.
Wonder Girls had an extensive promotional schedule for their album and in December 2007 they began performing the second single from the album, “이 바보” (”This Fool”). They made numerous appearances on variety and game shows, sang live on radio, at music festivals, on music shows, and in special joint performances with other groups such as Big Bang. MTV has also aired three seasons of The Wonder Life, a reality TV series starring the girls. In January 2008, however, they ceased promotion of their album to prepare for their concert in United States that was scheduled for March 2008.
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