Kim Tae-yeon

BIOGRAPHY

Tae-yeon was born in Jeonju, South Korea on March 9, 1989. She is trained in singing and dancing. Taeyeon was discovered in the 2004 SM Entertainment's 8th Annual Best Contest winning Best Singer 1st Place & Grand Award in the contest. In 2004, she was featured in The One's song "You Bring Me Joy" before debuting as Girls' Generation's leader. She is a 2008 graduate of Jeonju Art High School and was decorated with the school's Lifetime Achievement Award.

CAREER

Solo career

Tae-yeon has contributed to a couple of soundtracks as a solo artist, singing the theme song "Manyageh" ("If") for the KBS2 drama Hong Gil Dong and "Deullinayo" ("Can You Hear Me") from the Beethoven Virus soundtrack. "If" became popular[clarification needed] on various online charts, around the same time "Baby Baby" was released, while "Deullinayo" received the YEPP Popularity award at the 2008 Golden Disk Awards.

She also sang "SarangInGulYo" ("It is love") with Sunny for the drama Heading to the Ground, and the "S.E.O.U.L." song with members of Super Junior and Girls' Generation to promote South Korea. She also sang the song for Caribbean Bay / "Cabi" with her fellow members Jessica, Seohyun, Tiffany and Sunny with 2PM.

She sang a duet song with her mentor The One, called "Like a Star" which was released on November 17, 2010. She also sang in the soundtrack of SBS's Athena:Goddess of War, with the song "I Love You". The song was released on 13 December 2010. The song took number 1 in some hit charts.

On January 31, 2011, Tae-yeon sang a duet with Kim Bum-soo, titled "Different". The song also took number 1 not long after it was released.

She has also featured on Kangta's Album Eternity, singing 7989.

On March 28, 2012, Tae-yeon sang and released "Missing You Like Crazy", for the Korean Melodrama The King 2 Hearts starring Lee Seung-gi and Ha Ji- won, which took Number 1 on all charts such as Melon, Naver, Mnet, Soribada, Bugs, Olleh and Daum, achieving an 'All Kill' on the online charts on the day of its release. Tae-yeon had previously declined the offer to sing the OST for the drama due to her busy overseas schedules with Girls' Generation, but later took it up as she had made a promise with PD Lee Pil-ho, the producer of "Beethoven's Virus", for which Tae-yeon also sang the OST. PD Lee Pil-ho also stated that when he had first received the synopsis for "The King 2 Hearts", he had made special requests to only Tae-yeon, stating that she was the only singer who could sing the OST for the drama. In 2012, Tae-yeon also sang an OST, 'Closer', for the drama 'To the Beautiful You' starring by Choi Min-ho (from SHINee) and Sulli Choi (from f(x)).

Taeyeon is also rather adept at the mobile game, Anipang, claiming a high score of 360800.

Acting career

On May 7, 2010, she had her musical debut as the main female role in "Midnight Sun", which is based on the Japanese novel "Taiyō no uta" by Aya Denkawa. The musical is about Kaoru Amane, a 17-year-old girl, who suffers from Xeroderma pigmentosum, which forbids her from going out during daytime. She keeps her hopes up by writing songs and singing every night at a train station. Taeyeon received good press for her performance. Furthermore, she learned to play guitar for her musical performance.

Taeyeon and her band mate Seohyun were cast as voice actors for the Korean dub of the 3D animation Despicable Me. Taeyeon dubbed the voice of the character Margo, while Seohyun's role is Margo's younger sister Edith.

TV shows

She was featured on Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation reality-variety show We Got Married as part of the third rotation of couples; she was featured with comedian Jeong Hyeong-don. When this news was announced on January 7, 2009, it caused an uproar among South Korean netizens due to the 11-year age difference between the two.

Taeyeon was also a sub MC for Kim Seung-woo's talk show, 'SeungSeungJangGu' on KBS, MCing alongside 2PM's Wooyoung, Choi Hwa-jung, Kim Shin-young, and Kim Seung-woo.

Taeyeon, along with fellow Girls' Generation members Tiffany and Seohyun is an MC on MBC's Show! Music Core from February 11, 2012.

On February 22, 2012 she was a MC for First Gaon Chart K-Pop Awards together with Joo Younghoon and also for 2012 Korean Music Wave in Bangkok which was held on April 7, 2012 together with Tiffany and Nichkhun. During the hosting of the "First Gaon Chart K-Pop Awards" show, Taeyeon encountered a toe injury. Taeyeon's toe nail had been disconnected from her toe and she was unable to receive an award with her members.

Radio Shows

Taeyeon became a DJ on MBC Radio's Good Friend Radio, which she co-hosted with Super Junior's Kangin until he left on April 19, 2009. She has received the nicknamed "DJ Taengoo". Taeyeon ceased her DJ duties from April 26, 2010 onwards.

Taetiseo

SM Entertainment revealed that Taeyeon, Tiffany and Seohyun will form a SNSD subunit called Taetiseo; they released their first mini-album "Twinkle" on 2 May 2012. The subunit has different musical direction and style concept from the nine-member SNSD.

[edit]Incidents

Angel Price Music Festival

On April 17, 2011, during a performance at the Angel Price Music Festival, a male audience member trespassed onto stage and tried to pull leader Taeyeon off the stage. Member Sunny reacted the fastest out of all the rest of the members, and attempted to intervene, but failed. The male trespasser was subsequently stopped and apprehended by the host Oh Jung Tae and security staff. Taeyeon was later praised for her calm and professional attitude as she continued the performance until it ended. SM Entertainment later reported that everyone thought the trespasser was a staff member, and that the girls were fine and were resting as of the time of the statement. Social commerce business, Coupang, which handled the ticket sales at Angel Price's request, released an apology to Girls' Generation and fans for the incident, stating that "Coupang was inadequate in the way we sold and distributed the tickets." Coupang took full responsibility for the incident and promised to give a full refund to those who bought tickets for that event. However, some netizens criticized Coupang in that the business expects a mere refund to be an acceptable apology to all, especially towards Taeyeon. Many were bitter in that something worse could've happened to Taeyeon, and that the concert failed to protect the artist that they invited.

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read More

2012: International promotions, Solo activities, TaeTiSeo, and Japanese return (part 2)

It was announced on July 3, 2012, that the group was to release official stamps the following month, commemorating their 5th Anniversary. A total of 14 stamps were produced, which included autographed album covers. This marked the first time a celebrity had made a contract with Korea Post to produce stamps. Within an hour of the stamps' issuing, over half of the available stamp sheets had already sold out.

Girls' Generation perform "The Boys"
at the LG Cinema 3D World Festival, 1 April 2012.

Read More

2012: International promotions, Solo activities, TaeTiSeo, and Japanese return (part 1)

On January 12, 2012, the group attended the Golden Disk Awards, held in Osaka, bringing home two awards; the "Digital Bonsang" and the highly coveted "Digital Daesang". A week later, on January 19, 2012, they attended the Seoul Music Awards, and brought back two awards, the "Bonsang" and "Popularity" awards. The group also won two awards from the Gaon Chart Awards, winning the Album Of The Year for the fourth Quarter and Oricon "Hallyu Singer" award. On February 24, 2012, the teaser for their Japanese digital single, "Time Machine", was released. The song was included in the Japanese repackaged version of their first Japanese album. The full music video was released on March 13, 2012, with the song peaking fourteenth on Billboard Japan's Hot 100.

Girls' Generation perform "The Boys"
at theSeoul Music Awards, January 19, 2012.

Read More

2011: Girls' Generation, 2nd Asian Tour, International Expansion and The Boys (Part 2)

Girls' Generation was selected by SISA Press as "The Most Influential Entertainers in Korea" for the year 2011, after having placed sixth in 2010.

Girls' Generation performing "The Boys" at Madison Square Garden, in October 2011.

On September 26, 2011 the first teaser featuring Taeyeon was released for the impending comeback with the group's third Korean album The Boys, followed by Sunny and Hyoyeon on September 27; Jessica, Sooyoung, and Tiffany on September 28 and Yoona, Yuri, and Seohyun on September 29. The first image teaser for "The Boys" was released on the midnight of October 1, 2011 through SM Entertainment's YouTube channel.

Girls' Generation performing "The Boys"
at Madison Square Garden, in October 2011.

Read More

2011: Girls' Generation, 2nd Asian Tour, International Expansion and The Boys (Part 1)

At the start of 2011, the group prepared a new song titled "Visual Dreams" as part of their endorsement efforts for Intel's Core Processors throughout Asia. The music video for "Visual Dreams" was released on January 17, and various promotional campaigns included new music, 2D, and 3D music videos, internet sites, photos, and PC store displays.

In latter half of January, it was announced that the group would be returning to the Japanese market through the release of their Japanese version of "Run Devil Run" as a digital single, released on January 25, 2011.

Read More

2010: Oh!/Run Devil Run, Japanese debut and Hoot

Later in January, SM Entertainment confirmed the release of Oh!, the group's second full-length album, to be on January 28. The lead single "Oh!" was digitally released on January 25 with the music video being released two days later. On January 30, the group started promotions with the recording of MBC Music Core. The broadcast of the performance experienced a blackout near the end, to which MBC made the whole performance available online in response. With "Oh!", the group went on to win five consecutive K-charts on KBS Music Bank, as well as achieving a triple crown on SBS Inkigayo. "Oh!" also went on to win the Music Bank half-year K-chart, coming in at second on Hanteo's first half album sales chart, and also winning the end-of-year K-chart.[citation needed] The music video ranked as the number one most viewed YouTube video in Korea by the end of 2010. It was also number one in Hong Kong and made the top ten in both the Taiwan and Japan rankings.

Girls' Generation at an LG event in 2010 
Starting on March 11, 2010, photos of the members were released online showcasing a dark concept, dubbed "Black SoShi". A teaser video was released on March 16, with the new single Run Devil Run being released as a digital single on March 17. 

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. (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. In the first week after release, the DVD sold 23,000 copies, ranking fourth on the weekly DVD Oricon ranking and third on the weekly music DVD ranking, and made 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. They participated in the subsequent Shanghai, Los Angeles, Paris and Tokyo stops as well.

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 large amount of fans. The group sang five of their Korean tracks at each of the showcases, and the total number of attendees over all three shows were estimated to be at least 22,000. At this showcase, the "Genie" Japanese music video was also revealed publicly for the first time and the teaser having been released a few days prior on August 20. 
Their Japanese debut single "Genie" debuted at the fifth spot on the same day of its release on the Daily Oricon Charts and later rose to the second position on the Daily Charts some time later, earning the group a fourth position on the Oricon weekly ranking. The group also hit the number one 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. On October 20, 2010, the group released their second Japanese single, "Gee". 
A week after the release of their Japanese single, the group released their third Korean mini-album, Hoot on October 27, 2010, consisting of five tracks. The video for lead single, "Hoot", a song originally written in English as "Bulletproof", was released on October 28. Girls' Generation commenced their promotional activities with a comeback stage on KBS Music Bank on October 29. "Hoot" quickly rose to the top of the charts and received the number one spot numerous times on music shows, proving to be another successful release for the group. The group simultaneously promoted "Hoot" and "Gee" in Korea and Japan respectively, and participated in Japanese music broadcasts such as the FNS Music Festival, where they performed their two Japanese singles, "Gee" and "Genie" on December 4. 

On December 22, 2010, "Hoot" was repackaged with additional tracks from previous albums and released in Japan. The release rose to the second position on the Oricon charts and sold 21,000 copies on the first day, faring surprisingly well considering that all the included tracks were entirely in Korean. 

On December 9, 2010, the group attended the Golden Disk Awards and was awarded three awards including the Disk Daesang (Album of the Year) for their 2nd album Oh!. The group also became the first girl group to have both a Disk Daesang (2010) and Digital Daesang (2009). On December 15, 2010, the group attended the Melon Music Awards winning the Best Dressed Singer award and Hot Trend Song award for, "Hoot", as well as the Artist of the Year award. This would be the second consecutive 'Artist of the Year' award for the group. They topped the Hanteo annual Singer Award chart for 2010. 

The group was named on Asia Today's list of 50 Korean power leaders for 2011 at the number forty-fourth spot, being the only idol group from the list. Girls' Generation was designated "Artist of the Year" by Dosirak, Soribada, Korea Gallup, Hanteo and Sport Korea and also won Best Song of The Year with "Oh!" at Monkey 3.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read More

2009: Gee, Genie, first Asian tour and rising popularity

On December 26, 2008, posters of the Girls' Generation members wearing roller-skates were posted up in various locations around Seoul. SM Entertainment's phone lines were blocked up by callers asking whether the posters were for sale and the company asked fans to stop taking the posters down for personal use. On December 29, the group's management stated that the posters were indeed teaser posters and that the group would soon release their first EP, Gee, in January 2009.

Girls' Generation performing "Genie" at the LG Mobile Worldcup in 2009. 

A teaser video was released in January 2009 and the first single "Gee" released soon after. "Gee" topped Cyworld's hourly music chart on the release day. The song also went number one on all major digital music charts within two days. The music video set a record on release, garnering one million views on GomTV in under a day. The group began its album promotion in January 2009 on MBC Music Core where they sang their new lead single "Gee" and the track "Himnae (Way To Go)", another song from their mini-album.

"Gee" went on to become a phenomenal hit, breaking the record for consecutive number one wins on Music Bank with nine consecutive wins, as well as receiving a triple crown on SBS Inkigayo. The track also showed strength on other charts, topping the Mujikon, Melon and Mnet charts for eight consecutive weeks, the Dosirak chart for seven weeks, the Muse chart for six weeks, and the Baksu chart for four weeks.

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.

After a short break, SM Entertainment announced that the group would be back with a new mini-album sporting a "Marine Girl" concept. The new single was to be titled "Tell Me Your Wish (Genie)", with the full mini-album being released digitally on June 22, 2009. The group started their promotional activities on June 26, 2009, appearing on KBS Music Bank. The performance was followed by follow-up comeback performances on MBC Music Core and SBS Inkigayo on June 27 and 28, 2009. The physical release of Genie was delayed by SM Entertainment in order to redo the album art, and was released four days later on June 29, 2009.

The track proved to be a success as it conquered various music sites, including Melon, Dosirak, Mnet, and Bugs, and it was number one on the weekly charts and the SKT ringtone weekly charts of the first week of July. The mini-album sold an estimated 50,000+ copies in its first week after released (almost double the numbers from the first-week sales of Gee), an unusual feat for any Korean girl group.

On November 2009, SM Entertainment announced the group's Into The New World Tour. The tour began at Seoul's Olympic Park Fencing Stadium on December 19 and 20 and continued onto other Asian cities including Shanghai.

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read More

2007–2008: Debut and Girls' Generation

In July 2007, Girls' Generation had their unofficial first stage performance on Mnet School of Rock where the group performed their first single, titled "Into the New World" Dasi Mannan Segye). A documentary recording the story of the group's debut titled Mnet Girls' Generation Goes to School was filmed during this time, showing the members as they moved into an apartment together and prepared for their performances.

Girls' Generation in February 2008 performing at Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.

The group's first single was physically released soon after, including an instrumental of the group's debut song and two other tracks: "Beginning" and "Perfect for You." The latter's Korean title is "Wish" (SoWon), which later became the name of Girls' Generation's official fan club, S♡NE. The group's debut officially began on August 5, 2007, first performing on SBS Inkigayo, later on MBC Music Core and KBS Music Bank. "Into the New World" achieved No.1 spot on M! Countdown.

The group released their first self-titled full album in late autumn of 2007 with the lead single "Girls' Generation" (Sonyeo Shidae), a remake of Lee Seung-cheol's 1989 song. Promotion for the single started in early November. The album also included the group's first single "Into the New World", "Perfect For You" (re-titled "Honey"), and eight other tracks by the group.

In early 2008, Girls' Generation began promoting their second single from the album, "Kissing You", which won the group their first K-chart win after achieving the number one position on the KBS Music Bank February chart. This song achieved the #1 spot on three major TV music rankings—SBS Inkigayo, M.net M.Countdown! and KBS Music Bank.

In March 2008, the album was repackaged, re-released and re-titled Baby Baby. A third single, "Baby Baby", was released to promote the album. During the group's promotions, members Jessica, Tiffany and Seohyun were featured on a mini-album released by Roommate, a one-man band from Purple Communication. The mini-album was titled Roommate: Emotional Band Aid, and was released on December 1, 2008. The song performed by the three girls, titled "Oppa Nappa" (literally, Bad Brother), was digitally released before the album in April 2008. The song was performed live on SBS Inkigayo, KBS Music Bank, and M! Countdown.

Later in the year, the three members released "Mabinogi" (It's Fantastic!) together as the theme song for the Nexon game Mabinogi, with Tiffany participating in the music video. Mnet reality show Factory Girl chronicled the members working as interns at fashion magazine Elle Girl. The program began airing in early October. In late 2008, the group also participated in the SM Town Live '08 concert along with other SM Town artists.

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read More