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The Wonders Of K-Pop
The five-member girl group – Sunye, Ye-eun, Sohee, Yubin and Hye-rim – is the creation of South Korean singer-songwriter and entertainment mogul Park Jin-Young. (Think of them as a sort of Asian Mary Jane Girls without all the Rick James freakiness.) The girls were all selected through auditions held by Young and his talent agency and label, JYP Entertainment.
Wonder Girls debuted in Korea in 2007 and quickly attained massive popularity with their tight, five-part, En Vogue-inspired harmony and flawless choreography.
Over the next two years, the group scored three consecutive No. 1 singles, won two Daesangs (Artist of the Year awards) and created an international dance craze, the “Tell Me Virus,” with the onstage and video choreography for their hit song “Tell Me.”
In early 2009, Young brought the Wonder Girls to the States for a pair of shows in Los Angeles and New York City, as well as an appearance on “MTV Iggy,” the network’s international music showcase.
The group’s U.S. appearances caught the attention of someone in the Jonas Brothers camp and it was soon announced that the Wonder Girls would open for the sibs on their 2009 summer tour. Although they were intially signed for only 13 shows, the girls proved so popular with audiences that their run was extended and they wound up joining the Brothers Jonas for more than 50 shows.
The quintet previously released a pair of English translations of their Korean hits in North America – “Nobody” and “Tell Me” – but a full album, 2 Different Tears, didn’t hit U.S shores until last week. The project consists of half a dozen English versions of previous Wonder Girls hits and half a dozen tracks written especially for the album.
You can catch the Wonder Girls live this summer as they tour the States, with stops everywhere from New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom to Chicago’s House of Blues to San Francisco’s Fillmore.
Joining the group for the run are JYP labelmates 2 PM and 2 AM.
Here are the Wonder Girls making their U.S. television debut on last season’s “So You Think You Can Dance” finale and the slick, finger-popping cool (and hilarious) video for the English version of “Nobody.”