SUPER JUNIOR

Super Junior (슈퍼주니어; often stylized SUPERJUNIOR), sometimes referred to as SJ or SuJu (슈주), is a thirteen-member boy band from Seoul, South Korea. They are managed by producer Lee Soo Man and is currently the largest group under SM Entertainment. The members are Leeteuk (the leader), Heechul, Han Geng, Yesung, Kang-in, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook, Kibum, and Kyuhyun. The Chinese member, Han Geng, was chosen among the 3,000 applicants through auditions held in China by SM Entertainment in 2001. The group initially debuted with twelve members on November 6, 2005, but since the addition of Kyuhyun in May 23, 2006, they have become a thirteen-member group.

Super Junior has released two studio albums and two CD singles since 2005. Their most successful album, Don't Don, was the second best-selling album of 2007, according to the Music Industry Association of Korea. In addition, the group has earned four music awards from the M.NET/KM Music Festival, another four from the Golden Disk Awards, and is the second group to win Favorite Artist Korea at the MTV Asia Awards after JTL.

Since the late 1990s, Korean talent agency and record label SM Entertainment has been holding annual auditions to scout new talents that complemented the success of boy bands H.O.T and Shinhwa as well as the girl group S.E.S, all of which were created by SM founder and producer Lee Soo Man in the late 1990s. In 2001, the company held their first oversea casting auditions in Beijing, where they discovered Han Geng, who was chosen among 3,000 applicants. Leeteuk, Heechul, Yesung, Eunhyuk, Siwon, and Kibum were discovered under the company's annual auditions that were held in Seoul while Kang-in, Shindong, Sungmin, Donghae, and Ryeowook were discovered through SM-sponsored contests and singing competitions.^[5]

Not long after boy band TVXQ's debut in 2003, news about Lee's unprecedented plans of forming another boy band quickly spread over the Internet. In early 2005, SM Entertainment confirmed the news and announced that a twelve-member all-male singing group would debut near the end of the year, promoting the project group to be "The Gateway to Stardom of Asia."For a while the group was known to be called O.V.E.R, the acronym for "Obey the Voice for Each Rhythm."Most members of the group have been actors, MCs, models, or DJs prior debut. Heechul and Kibum made their first appearances in dramas and films; Leeteuk, Yesung, Kang-in, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, and Siwon made cameo television appearances; Han Geng made his first media appearance as a model, and Heechul was also already an established DJ before debut.

Before the group settled with their current name, the company labled them as simply Junior, a representation of the members' young ages when they first joined SM Entertainment. However, after the members' showcased their different talents to the company during an SM-sponsored picnic, the company finalized their name to Super Junior. Soon the group became officially Super Junior 05, the first generation of Super Junior. In the first several months of debut, Super Junior had been known for their infamous line-up, a concept being very similar to Japan's girl group, Morning Musume. Intended to be a rotational group, there was to be new members replacing some of the old members each year, forming a new Super Junior generation every time. However, this concept was abandoned when a new member was added in May 2006.

They made their pre-debut appearance on the Korean channel, M.NET on September 11, 2005. At the showcase, Super Junior 05 performed various styles of hip hop dancing. The group danced to B2K's "Take It To The Floor." Han Geng, Eunhyuk, and Donghae also performed a separate dance away from the group, 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.