“Begin” by 東方神起 (acapella performance live on an early morning show, 2006) “永遠に” by Gosepllers (with TVXQ, live at Soul Power Summit 2007) “Choosey Lover” by 東方神起 ( Official MV note: I love this song so much) “Balloons” by TVXQ (and you can make up your own mind on the schmoopy stages this one was only about a month after Yunho had been almost killed by an anti-fan poisoning his juice.) “Sky” by 東方神起 ( Official MV note: this song bangs big time) “Rising Sun” by TVXQ (live at a-nation 2006) “동방의 투혼” by TVXQ (World Cup 2006 Korea image song) “青春アミーゴ” by 修二と彰 (aka Yamashita Tomohisa and Kamenashi Kazuya) “Bolero” by 東方神起 (from ~ The Secret Code ~ Final In Tokyo Dome) I think it’s important to remember, especially when thinking about what happens next, that all of the members of TVXQ were under extreme stress during this era thanks to overwork and anxiety from being constantly stalked and all of the other pressures from family, S.M. While there were certainly highs during this period, there were also many disturbing and traumatic incidents that came with their fame and those incidents left a mark on the members.

and Jaejoong were even held up as friendly rivals for their acting roles… and as part of a glamorous “idol F4” along with Yoochun. Most fans today won’t remember BigBang as the scrappy number two idol group behind kings TVXQ but the era exists! For a while BigBang’s T.O.P. Although it’s been completely memory-holed, the TVXQ vs. guest from episodes 49 and 24 and I have discussed at length is the importance for artists of the ecosystem, that an artists exists in context, not just as an entity in a vacuum.The 2008 SBS Gayo Daejun-which gave us showcases like the excellent piano battle between BigBang’s Taeyang and TVXQ’s Junsu-really signals the beginning of the “K-Pop” ecosystem, with its own mythos and stars… stars that may or may not overlap with what domestic Korean music consumers, generally, are listening to. Entertainment group EXO released XOXO in 2013.Īhhh take me “back to the old school”… those were the days.īy the time 2008 comes to a close, the seeds of the “K-Pop industry” as we know it today have been planted. The K-Pop album sales arms race that currently has Seventeen’s sales numbers for FML with the new top selling record of all time with over six million began with TVXQ’s Mirotic in 2008 and although record keeping is fuzzy for numerous reasons it’s generally agreed that TVXQ’s sales record will hold until S.M. If you have a copy with English subtitles (or Japanese subtitles) let me know because I’d love to watch it again. It only makes sense that TVXQ would provide the theme song for Bae Yong Joon’s 2007 epic drama The Legend, a drama that has seemingly been wiped from the Internet. The housewife demographic is a powerful one and even as TVXQ picked up younger fans, the aunties suffering from “Bae Yong Joon Fever” remained a core part of the fan base… and really aunties remain a core part of the Japanese fan base to this day (as well as the core fan base of other K-Pop groups like BTS). One of the things that shouldn’t be overlooked when looking at TVXQ’s rise in Japan is their successful rebranding from teen hysteria teenyboppers to romantic Korean men in the image of Bae Yong Joon aka “Yon-sama”. The one thing I didn’t double check! You know what they say about assumptions…) (And a correction for part 3-Yamapi had already debuted with NEWS when 青春アミーゴ was released. Part 3 looks at their rise to the top of Japan’s boy group market (as well as to the top of the newly forming “K-Pop” market) culminating in a performance at the prestigious national New Year’s Eve concert 紅白歌合戦 (Kouhaku Utagassen) on December 31, 2008, only one of four boy groups invited to perform. Entertainment to pivot their new boy group TVXQ to the Japanese market. Part 2 takes a look at the critical years 2003-2005 and the circumstances that led S.M. Entertainment and some of the circumstances that led up to the creation of TVXQ.

The first episode is available here and covers the founding of S.M. Listeners can make up their own minds about the heroes and villains of this story.

I tried my best to remain as neutral as possible throughout this story and where a single narrative wasn’t possible I attempted to steel man all sides of the argument. I touched on the group in my history series-which you may want to listen to first if you haven’t-but the circumstances surrounding the group’s almost disbandment and multitude of legal problems which began in 2009 and lasted for years afterwards are still contentious with fans (and anti-fans) to this day and their story really deserved proper time and attention paid to it. This is the third part in an episode series on the rise and fall and rebirth of TVXQ aka 東方神起 aka 동방신기.

Tohoshinki choosy lover