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News The History of: SM Entertainment Part 1 (1989-1995) (1 Viewer)

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So I did a History of: Series on another forum and it did well. I am back and have updated this new piece with even more information about SM's early days and how it shaped how SM developed its In-house system that eventually was used by the rest of Kpop. This is the first piece and it goes over roughly the founding of SM and its first artists. I have included the sources for those interested, though some of them are in Korean. I really want to make of this series and if others have been to the previous forum they would know that I have quite a bit more info. I plan to research more and add to those previously created threads so it will be different. I plan to also created other locations for this history such as video but for now I would just like to leave it here. I am going to try and have a new piece up every Monday, this stuff takes quite a while to research and while I am decent in Korean Sometimes I have to use a translator and that takes more time.
Part 1: The Rise of SM Entertainment, 1989~1995
The History of SM begins with the man who is inarguably one of the most important figures in the shaping of the modern K-pop industry, Lee Soo-man. Lee Soo-man was born on June 18th 1952 in Seoul, South Korea. He began his singing career in 1972 and throughout the 70s Lee Soo-man would focus both on his singing career and on his studies at Seoul National University. During his first decade in the Korean music industry Lee Soo-man had several hit songs such as "Happiness" and "A Piece of Dream". In the early 80s, Lee Soo-man began a band called Lee Soo-man and the 365 Days. This band fell victim to the heavy censorship of the dictatorial government of Chun Doo-hwan and Lee Soo-man decided to leave the music industry and try for a career in computer engineering. He traveled to America and went to CSUN, California State University, Northridge, where he witnessed the explosion of pop culture that was being undergone through artists such as Michael Jackson. Lee Soo-man gained inspiration from all that he had seen in America and, after returning to Korea in 1985, returned to the Korean music industry and began putting into practice all that he had seen in America's pop culture scene. Immediately after his return Lee Soo-man worked as a DJ and presenter and would continue such work, earning money to establish his own company. It was during this time, the late 80s, that Lee Soo-man began looking around several clubs in Seoul, particularly Itaewon, for an artist that would be able to fulfill his ambitions. Soo-man's plan was to debut a three-member group, with a clear center and two dancers. It was during this time that Lee Soo-man hired Choi Jin-yeol and charged him with finding talent that would make his dream a reality. The first two individuals that Choi Jin-yeol brought to Soo-man happened to be Lee Ju-no, future member of Seo Taiji & Boys, and Hyun Jin-young. Hyun Jin-young and Lee Juno both auditioned but Hyun Jin-young was picked as he was not only a superb dancer but also a superior singer in comparison to Lee Juno. The year was 1988 and Lee
Soo-man had finally found his star in the sixteen-year-old Hyun Jin-young.[1]

Soon after Lee Soo-man would found SM Planning in the Apgujeong neighborhood of Seoul in 1989. Choi Jin-yeol became in-charge of managing the company while another man by the name of Hong Jong-hwa became an executive producer. After this Lee Soo-man returned to his goal and began the process finding the two dancers that would complete the three-member group that Lee Soo-man had envisioned. To find the right men, Lee Soo-man decided to hold a dance festival which included dancers such as Lee Ju-no, Yang Hyun-suk, Koo Jun-yeop, Kang Won-rae, Yoo Young-jin, and Mi-ae. In the end Koo Jun-yeop and Kang Won-rae won the competition and were signed to SM Planning by the recommendation of Choi Jin-yeol. Hyun Jin-young, along with Koo Jun-yeop and Kang Won-rae, would debut in 1990 under the name of Hyun Jin-young and Wawa. Hyun Jin-young showed great performance skills with his first album, New Dance 1, which gained attention for the songs “Sad Mannequin” and “Sexy Girl” which were some of the first songs to introduce rap and hip hop into the Korean Music scene.[2]Hyun Jin-young's dance abilities also attracted attention and he came to be known as the "Dance King". While this introduction of hip-hop style dance and rap was revolutionary to the Korean music scene, and this showed in sales with the album selling roughly 800,000 physical copies.[3]
Hyun Jin-young and Wawa: Sad Mannequin



In tandem with the successful debut of their first artists, Lee Soo-man would begin a different approach to how SM Planning would promote their artist. SM Planning began a new system, a more in-house system wherein the company would look after every aspect of a idols career from promoting, creating, and producing an idols music. Lee Soo-man changed Hyun Jin-young image, giving him baggy pants and adding more rap elements to his songs. During this transition period, Koo Jun-yeop and Hang Won-rae entered the military and were replaced by Lee Hyun-do and Kim Sung-jae. Koo Jun-yeop and Kang Won-rae would eventually go on to debut in the duo group Clon. Meanwhile, trouble hit SM Planning as Hyun Jin-young found himself embroiled in a drug scandal after having been arrested on suspicion of drug possession in 1991. Lee Soo-man decided to stand with Hyun Jin-young, going as far as to pay Hyun Jin-young’s parent’s living expenses.[4]This scandal greatly affected SM Planning and its management as well, as Choi Jin-yeol, the man who had helped Lee Soo-man establish his company and the CEO of the company, was forced to leave. Choi Jin-yeol would go on to manage the hit group Seo Taiji & Boys. Lee Hyun-do would show his disapproval with Hyun Jin-young's drug scandal by leaving and pursuing his own independent career while Kim Sung-jae would continue his studies at Hanyang University, this would effectively spell the end for Hyun Jin-young and Wawa. From this point on Lee Soo-man would hire various back-up dancers to fill the role of Wawa. Lee Hyun-do and Kim Sung-jae would eventually reunite and form the duo Deux in 1993. Meanwhile Lee Soo-man would stick by his star and would help the singer get released from jail after only a year. During this time SM Planning would debut another solo artist by the name of Han Dong-jun with his first album titled, Just Because You're In this World, in 1991.Han Dong-jun's album would do well but overall, he would be overshadowed by his label mates drug scandal. 1991 also saw SM Planning debut Kim Gwang-jin with his debut album Virgin Flight. Kim Gwang-jin had begone his career as a composer making several songs while in college. He was later contacted by Han Dong-jin, who was about to make his debut at SM Planning, and asked if he would compose the singers debut album. This would be the step that would eventually lead to Kim Gwan-jin getting his own solo soon after. This debut solo album showcased the talents of Kim Gwang-jin well but unfortunately, he would not be able to gain the level fame that would have been desired.[5]

Han Dong-jun: 그대가 이 세상에 있는 것만으로


For SM Planning 1992 would begin with the debut of a new soloist by the name of Kim Min-jong. Kim Min-jong was born in Seoul and would make his entertainment debut as an actor in 1988 with the movie “Don Quixote on Asphalt”. He would continue to receive rolls in movies through 1989 and begin to achieve a measure of fame as well. Kim Min-jong would make his musical debut with the release of his first album in March of 1992 with an album titled Love Parting Story. This album would do well and sell roughly 400,000 physical copies.[6] Min-jong would continue to gain popularity throughout the year and establish his name in the music industry. Hyun Jin-young’s 2nd album, New Dance 2, came out in 1992 and it did very well, partly benefiting from the hip hop craze that had been generated from the recently debuted group known as Seo Taiji & Boys. The album’s title track, "You in the Dark memories", would find great success and help boost the album to popularity. The album would sell well, with roughly 1.8 million physical copies sold that year.[7]Hyun jin-young was now a certified star, competing with Seo Taiji & Boys along with a handful of other stars for the national spotlight. This comeback wasn't a complete success for Lee Soo-man as his distribution company also went under causing great financial strain for SM Planning. In December of 1992, Kim Min-jong would return to the music scene this time with noted soloist Son Ji-chang in the duo group The Blue. The Blue was a ballad group that debuted under SM Planning in 1992 with a four-song studio album titled, The Blue-New Release. The duo soon became popular among women and their ballads gained wide popularity in karaoke rooms. During this time The Blue was seen as a rival to Seo Taiji & Boys, this was not in terms of album sales, as Seo Taiji & Boy owned in that area, but in the popularity of their songs.
Hyun Jin-young and Wawa: You in the Dark Memories


The Blue: 너만을 느끼며



Han Dong-jun would begin 1993 for SM Planning with the release of his 2ndalbum in January of 1993 titled Han Dong-jun II. This album would do well and show that SM Planning’s focus was not only on the idol world. Quickly following Han Don-jun’s album Kim Min-jong would release his second solo album titled Under the Sky. This album would further show the star power of Min-jong as a soloist and do well selling 450,000 physical copies.[8]After the amazing success of his second album, Hyun Jin-young quickly released his third album titled, Int. World Beat and Hip Hop of New Dance 3, in 1993. This album was another hit for Hyun Jin-young and SM Planning, garnering as much as 400,000 copies in sales just days after it was released. Unfortunately, just a week after the release for the album, Hyun Jin-young was arrested again for suspicion of drug possession. This hit Hyun Jin-young's career hard and many fans lost respect for him due to his continued drug usage. Along with this, many of the albums that were distributed to be sold were also confiscated and this put a tremendous financial burden on SM Planning and several assets had to be sold in order for the company to avoid bankruptcy. This was a terrible blow to SM Planning as Lee Soo-man had invested a large amount of money promoting, creating and producing music for Hyun Jin-young. Not only did SM Planning lose Hyun Jin-young but it also lost its other artists, such Kim Gwang-jin, who felt that they had no future with SM Planning.[9]This made Lee Soo-man develop the idol system even more, not only would it completely control the career side of the artist but it would also develop the artists as individuals, he saw that character and personality were just as important as a person’s singing and dancing ability. By extending the idol system into developing idols as people he sought to minimize the risk of another Hyun Jin-young situation happening and thus further protecting his investment. This in-house system was pushed even further due to the failure of the distribution company that Lee Soo-man had created for Hyun Jin-young. Lee Soo-man decided to be more careful about just how reliant he was on a distribution companies and outside of this now every aspect of his idol, from training to their character development, were controlled by SM Planning. SM Planning would now produce, plan, and license the music made by its artists. SM would also provide managers and agents to organize events and organize a star training academy to trainee future idols to develop both their skills and personality. Thus, it was through multiple failures that SM Planning created the current Idol System, each aspect coming after a particular failure.

Hyun Jin-young and Wawa: 두근두근 쿵쿵


In the process of developing idols under this system SM Planning released several artists to try and capture some success after the failure that was Hyun Jin-young. One such artist was Yu Young-jin and his debut album Blues in Rhythm Single 1 in 1993. Yu Young-jin had visited SM Planning previously to visit the dancers Kang Won-rae and Koo Jun-yeop, artists he happened to be close with. Having met Lee Soo-man then, he decided to send a tape to Lee and try his luck with SM Planning. Lee Soo-man recognized Young-jin's talents and decided to sign him. Yu Young-jin's contract was unique for the industry at the time as it was life-long. Yu Yong-jin’s album included the song,그대의 향기” which was an early example of the R&B genre making its way into the Korean music scene.[10] Along with this debut, SM Planning also released a group known as Tin Tin 5 composed of five comedians, Pyo In-bong, Lee Woong-ho, Hong Rok-ki, Lee Dong-woo, and Kim Kyungsik. The five members were originally comedians who cobined gag comedy with musical aspects such as rap and dance. They decided to form a comedian-made dance group and debut in 1993 under SM Planning. The groups debut album would be titled Tin Tin Five and their title track was titled “Some Days”, would be released in late 1993. They gained attention due to their energetic dance and stage performances.[11]

In 1994 SM Planning debuted more artists beginning with the three-person group named Major. The group consisted of three members, leader Lim Bum-jun, Seo Yeon-su, and Yu Han-jin. The groups genre of music, rock, showed the diversity of music that existed in SM Planning during this early era of the company. Lim Bum-jun was the Japanese born leader of the group and served as a Lead vocal and bass. Seo Yeon-su was the only female of the trio and served as a main vocal and guitar player of the group. Last came Yu Han-jin who served as the drummer of the group. Major’s first album was titled Easy Rock Single 1and the title track of the album was titled, “Early Spring Day”. Majors performances were well received but the group had sanctions imposed on them due to their hairstyles and outfits. They were warned by broadcasting stations that they would be allowed to perform until they cleaned up their act. Lim Bum-jun and Seo Yeon-su refused to follow those guidelines and felt that their music showed not be limited by broadcasting stations so they left Major and departed from SM Planning. Yu Han-jin would remain with SM Planning and work as a lyricist and producer for the company. J&J was the next group to debut for SM Planning in 1994. J&J was created by Lee Soo-man and was composed of two Korean-Americans ,Kang Jun-shik and Kim Ju-hyun, their debut album was titled Guitar and Dance Single 1 and was released on August of 1994. The duo’s debut was not very successful and this would be their only album released with SM Planning. Some of the J&J’s songs, “about girls” and “Myself in the Sunset”, were reused for the debut album of H.O.T. in 1996. Thus, with the failure of Major and J&J, SM Planning was on rocky ground and this was furthered by the departure of Hong Jong-hwa, the chief producer of SM Planning, in 1994. Thus as 1994 came to an end, SM Planning was in dire straits as its chief producer had left and its last two projects had failed miserably. February of 1994 would also seem release their first SMTown album which was composed of songs from SM Planning’s artists and titled SM Best Album 1.

Yu Young-jin: 그대의 향기, 그대 가슴에 나를 가두어


Tin Tin 5: Some Days


Major: Early Spring Day


J&J: 미지수야 미지수


SM Planning would open 1995 with the release of TIN TIN 5’s second album titled Here We Go. The album would do moderately well and the group would continue to be known for their interesting dances and stages. The Blue would also make in the early part of the year with their second album titled The Blue. This album would further cement the popularity of The Blue and sell roughly 380,000 physical copies. However, the duo would soon break-up due to an internal conflict and each member would go on with their solo careers. Following The Blue’s second album, Han Dong-jun would release his third solo album in May of 1995 titled Han Dong-jun III. This album would also due well and a song on the album would be written by Kim Gwang-jin, a man who though no longer with SM Planning had attained fame with his duo The Classics. Yu Yeong-jin would be the last SM Planning artist to release an album in September of 1995 and it would be titledBlue Rhythm. The title track of the album would be “Your Delusion” and the performance on music shows would contain backup dancers that were SM Planning trainees and would eventually go on to be the members of H.O.T. This album would continue to show the lyric and composing ability of Yu Yeong-jin and highlight why he was the excutive producer at SM Planning. This year Lee Soo-man would incorporate his company and SM Planning became SM Entertainment CO., LTD and the meaning of SM was adapted to meaning “Success Museum” instead of what it originally stood for which was “Soo-man”.
The step of establishing his corporation was important as it showed that SM Entertainment had survived its tough time and had come out of it in a somewhat favorable condition. Lee Soo-man decided to throw all of SM Entertainment’s remaining resources into the production of an idol group. This idol group would be created by Lee Soo-man and composed and trained by Yu Young-jin. Lee Soo-man had decided to put his all behind this group, fail and it would be a hit to his newly established corporation. It was with these high stakes that H.O.T. debuted on September 7th1996.

The creation of SM’s new in-house system would really be one of the first of its kind in the Korean music scene. This system would trainee idols not only in terms of talent but after the companies experience with Hyun Jin-young, in personality. Hyun Jin-young had greatly damaged SM Planning through his many scandals and Lee Soo-man would not take a chance like that again. This system also allowed for SM to generate max profits as it controlled every aspect of their artists career and thus did not have to pay various agencies. During this time SM Planning’s music also did not follow along the typical idol path and instead focused on ballad and folk singers. This is largely due to Lee Soo-man’s interest in those music genres. As SM stated to produce Idol groups the company’s focus would definitely see a shift in the types of artists it put out but this did not mean that SM would stop putting out unique artists that fit into genres outside of the typical Idol pop music. Overall, these early years taught Lee Soo-man and his associates exactly what type of company they should strive to be and how to get the maximum potential out their artists.


[1]카랑카. “서태지현진영이수만에얽힌비하인드스토리.” ppt21.com. Last Modified: November 05, 2011. Assessed: March 12, 2019. 서태지 현진영 이수만에 얽힌 비하인드 스토리.
[2]“현진영.” Mnet.com. Assessed: March 19, 2019. [Mnet] 현진영.
[3]리콜한방. “역대100만장이상판매앨범기록들-2편-.” Pgr.com. Last modified: July 07, 2007. Assessed: March 24, 2019. 역대 100만장 이상 판매 앨범 기록들 -2편-.

[4]“옛날글알림.”Instiz.net. Last Modified: November 9, 2013. Assessed: March 16, 2019. [인티포털] SM1호가수 현진영이 대마초 피웠을때 이수만이 한말 .jpg.

[5]Seo Jeong-min. “증권사관두고가수복귀아무래도운명인가봐요.”Hani.co.kor. Last modified: November 08,2011. Assessed: March 25, 2019. 증권사 관두고 가수 복귀 아무래도 운명인가 봐요.
[6]식물. “Re:Re:Re:민종님음반판매량좀알려주세요!!.”Cluster1.cafe.daum.net. Last modified: November 05, 2011. Assessed: March 24, 2019. Re:Re:Re:민종님 음반 판매량좀 알려주세요!!.


[7]성주연. “현진영의 흐린기억속의그대 앨범판매량이궁금합니다.” tip.daum.net. Last Modified: October 29, 2017. Assessed: March 16, 2019. 현진영의 흐린기억속의그대 앨범 판매량이 궁금 합니다..

[8]식물. “Re:Re:Re:민종님음반판매량좀알려주세요!!.”Cluster1.cafe.daum.net. Last modified: November 05, 2011. Assessed: March 24, 2019. Re:Re:Re:민종님 음반 판매량좀 알려주세요!!.
[9]카랑카. “서태지현진영이수만에얽힌비하인드스토리.” ppt21.com. Last Modified: November 05, 2011. Assessed: March 12, 2019. 서태지 현진영 이수만에 얽힌 비하인드 스토리.
[10]Ibid.
[11]“틴틴파이브.” Mnet.com. Assessed: March 19, 2019. [Mnet] 틴틴파이브 소개.
 

yeji

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Love it! Thank you for such a detailed thread. Please keep making such history threads. It‘s defently something that more people should know about.
 

yeji

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yeji

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Thanks again.
Tag por favor.
 
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I read many of your history threads on that other site.
Interesting more information not included there.
Hope you continue more, please.
 
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Major was really nice very evocative of early rock and roll music. simple clean.
Too bad they had creative expression issues with the networks that could have been a way to see more mixed groups survive.

LSM really owns it all, folks give a bunch of credit to the boys, but were it not for the drug scandal all the brains behind them would have been at SM.
 
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Woah I did not know that Clon and Deuce started out their careers in SM.

Please tag me in future threads!
 

VillageIdiot

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Tag me fam!
Welcome aboard! :pandalove:
 
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Woah I did not know that Clon and Deuce started out their careers in SM.

Please tag me in future threads!

You would be surprised, not only did YG also try out to be in SM but Sean from Jinusean, one of the groups that helped YG get off the ground, also performed in Hyun Jin-young and Wawa.
 
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You would be surprised, not only did YG also try out to be in SM but Sean from Jinusean, one of the groups that helped YG get off the ground, also performed in Hyun Jin-young and Wawa.
Maybe that's why YG doesn't like SM that much? lol
 
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Maybe that's why YG doesn't like SM that much? lol
SM should have looked into the future. Both YG and JYP tried out to be in SM in its early stages and both were denied. JYP for being to ugly and YG for whatever reason. Lee Soo-man could have eliminated two of his biggest competitors.
 

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