Monday, October 19, 2009

[News] SS501 to Release Mini-album in Korea

Thanks Jericho for the tips! I almost forget to post about this! Hmm.... coming to Singapore on February.... I hope it is true! No matter what, I will continue to wait patiently......

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Copyright: KBS World
Original Source: http://english.kbs.co.kr/Entertain/EntertainmentNews/view.html?No=7171
Please repost with full credit.

The five-member boy band SS501, which has been holding its first Asia tour entitled "Persona" since its debut in 2005, will release a mini-album in Korea late this month. Entitled "Rebirth," it's the first album to feature all five members in a year and seven months.

After performing in Korea and Japan in August, SS501 finally visited Taiwan to perform at the Taipei Arena. Kim Hyun-joong, who came down with swine flu in September during his stay in Japan, said his swine flu symptoms included a fever of over 39.5℃, diarrhea six to seven times a day, and coughs 4-5 times a minute.

Kim said, "It's like the worst degree of a cold. The most difficult part was being isolated. It's a very lonesome disease." He added that he was scared to see other swine flu patients who were hospitalized on the same floor with him dying of the disease. "I believed that I would recover," said the singer.


Following the chat about his swine flu experience, Kim went on to discuss the group's popularity in Taiwan. SS501 received a very warm welcome from its Taiwanese fans. The group held its first fan meeting in Taiwan in June, but it is SS501's first concert in that country. Five albums from SS501 that were released in Taiwan in July sold more than 100,000 copies in just three months, earning SS501 the White Gold Disc from the Taiwanese album distributor.

Taiwanese dailies covered SS501's arrival to Taiwan. One of them wrote that some 600 fans welcomed the group at the airport and were concerned to see Kim Hyun-joong looking emaciated after falling ill. The daily also added that SS501 was welcomed by 1,500 fans back in June when it visited the country for a fan meeting.

As was expected, SS501's concert in Taiwan was sold out. The group members said, "We rented a rehearsal room on the day of our arrival and rehearsed till midnight. The next day we held a news conference and rehearsed again from 3PM till midnight. We wanted to make everything perfect because the stage was different from Korea and Japan."

The repertoire of SS501's Asia tour concerts includes songs from its new mini-album. Its jacket features the name Steven Lee, who wrote all the songs. He is a Korean-American producer who also wrote for the popular German group US5 and top Japanese groups KAT-TUN and Arashi. The renowned music engineer Ken Lewis, who also worked with Usher and John Legend, took care of mixing, why choreographer AJ, who used to choreograph for Michael Jackson and Usher, created SS501's new dances.


Kim said, "Our new songs including the title song 'Love Like This' are pop-style numbers. We had many discussions with Steven Lee to come up with pop songs that appeal to the Korean public. This album is very special to us because it reflects our opinions. We wanted to create our own unique style while the K-pop scene was dominated by 'hook songs.' Rather than following trends, we wanted to set new trends."

Due to a number of problems, the album release was postponed by two months. The song that the group received from a music dealer to be used as a title song was found to have already been released overseas. To make things worse, the dealer turned out to have no right to sell the song and just wanted to reap profits.

Kim said, "The song that we heard on a plane on our way from Japan was identical to the song that we were to release soon. We notified our agency and realized that we had been duped by the dealer. Had we released that song, we would have been accused of plagiarism."

The new album contains five songs. The lyrics of one of them were written personally by the members for their fans. Kim Hyun-joong wrote the lyrics for the song "Obsess". The special edition of the album sold more than 30,000 copies on the day of its release; 20,000 additional copies are to be released soon in 10 countries.


The five members finally got together after being active solo for a long time. Kim Hyun-joong appeared in the TV drama "Boys Over Flowers," Park Jung-min acted in the musical "Grease," and Heo Young-saeng, Kim Hyung-joon and Kim Kyu-jong were active with the hit song "U R Man." This time, all five are determined to stay together for as long as possible.

SS501 will perform in Shanghai in November before it flies to Hong Kong in December and visits Thailand and Malaysia in January. In February, the group will perform in Singapore and Beijing.

"We realize that the U.S. music market is hard to succeed in. We want to lay a springboard in Asia before we advance into the Middle East, Africa and the U.S.," said the SS501 members.

8 comments:

Jericho said...

I'm very happy that their Taipei concert is so successful. Their DSP president came along this time to see with his own eyes how popular is SS501 in Taiwan but I don't think the news abt Leader having to rush back to hv a mgmt meeting with DSP President on a Sunday afternoon is true? And the flight is not 5am, I hv checked it's 7.55am and return to Seoul at 11.20am.
Sometimes we must be discerning when reading news, some of it are rubbish and exaggerations.
One more thing I wanna to comment is that after watching the Tony Moly interview again, towards the end Leader did a dance move, it reminded me that he was actually imitating the popular dance move of Brown Eyes Girls.

Mini UFO said...

Thanks for the input, Jericho! Will be more discerning in future when releasing news! ^^

You really have sharped eyes! Maybe also because you have been following kpop very closely. I tried listening to other kpop group but can't seem to accept their songs except for SS501. :P

Jericho said...

Yeah, alot of these groups are only visually thrilling with their sexy dance moves and short revealing dressings but their songs are all the same. Sometimes the way they dress are really all out to kill, guys will have bleeding nose watching the girls.
Some of their songs are so bad but I must say 2NE1, Wonder Girls and Brown Eye Girls single hits are very catchy tunes and nice to listen to.

Mini UFO said...

Wonder Girls.... I do listen to their 'Nobody', because of WGM!! 2NE1, because leader say he think that CL is talented... so I listen to few song by them and I am quite ok with the 'I don't care e e e' song... ^^ 'Gee' because YS dance it... Every korean song I listen to, more or less has relation to SS501. LOL!

Brown Eye Girls.... any song recommendations??

Hee! We are talking about out of SS501 topic things here... :P

Mini UFO said...

Oh, BTW, DSP has an official released saying that SS501 album is now available at Mnet & Melon.

vAnVan said...

Hey, is it true tat Ss501 will come to Singapore in February for concert and not Dec? coz i heard tat that they will come here for early christmas wif fans?

Mini UFO said...

The report says so.... but then no matter what we still need to wait for the final confirmation from DSP. All these dates might be changed anytime due to any unforeseen circumstances

V said...

hope they will come though! cause i live in singapore! sheesh, imagine what will it be like if they really come! whoo, it's gonna be messy! HAHA!
ohoh, thanks for constantly updating your blog! AHAHA! your blog and liezle's blog are the two blogs that i will constantly go (thou i am going to have o's D: )
thanks aloooooot! ^^