Hi guys! I have a unique article for you guys! This article is about my favorite group, TWICE! My friend Julia Chen wrote it and I improvised it to my style. So thank you, Julie!
What is TWICE?
TWICE is a South Korean girl group containing nine members in an entertainment company called JYP. They are the second-greatest entertainment company founded in 1997 by J.Y. Park, a singer-songwriter. In TWICE, the 9 members are Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Jihyo, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu.
The chart below shows the roles of each member:
6Mix to Sixteen:
Did you know that TWICE could’ve been 6Mix? On December 19, 2013 JYP announced that they would debut a new group called 6Mix. They were the first girl group to come out since Miss A's debut. And on Febuary 27, 2014, they confirmed the trainees Lena and Cecilia as members. At the same time, it was rumored that the other members were Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Jihyo, and Minyoung, and everything was looking great, but then the Sae-wol Tragedy happened. Everyone was in mourning, so their debut was delayed. But then, Lena and Cecilia left JYP. So, even though this doesn’t make sense, to make up the spot that Lena and Cecilia had left, Sana was confirmed as one of the members for TWICE. (Shy, Shy, Shy!)
“But there are 9 members in TWICE, not 5!” is probably what you’re thinking. But just be quiet and listen to me. The member selection process isn’t done yet. But how will it be decided? Well, it will be decided with a survival show, just like ENHYPEN. It was called Sixteen, and it lasted from May 5, 2014, until July 7, 2014, and by the end, every one of the current members was confirmed as a member, except for Tzuyu and Momo. Then, J.Y. Park announced that he would be adding 2 more members, and those are Tzuyu, who was considered the “audience’s choice,” and Momo, who was added by J.Y. Park himself because he thought that the group needed a dancer as good as her.
And that is how the group came to be. Now, all there is left to do is produce an album and debut as the star of K-Pop.
The Story Begins
“나를 우아우아 하게 만들어” Oh! What am I singing? This is “Like Ooh-Ahh” by TWICE in its debut album, “The Story Begins”. If you didn’t realize, The names of the sections are named after albums except for section 2. Anyways, “Like Ooh-Aah” is their debut song, released on October 15, 2014, and unlike other groups before, this is the first K-pop debut song’s music video to hit 100 million views! And today, the views are up to 450 million views.
But that’s not it! Just 188 days after the release of “The Story Begins”, TWICE released a new album called “Cheer Up”. With this one incredible song, they topped the Gaon Chart (Circle Chart) and won “Music of the Year” at the Melon Music Awards and the Mnet Asian Music Awards (which is like the Grammy of East Asia) and there’s more than that! The music video for the song went viral, and in just 30 minutes of release, the song got 400K views in just 30 minutes! By the end of the day, they had more than 1 million views, and in two days, they had surpassed 7 million views. But do you want to know something greater? Just in 7 months, it reached 100 million views, then about 9 months later, it reached 200 million views, which makes TWICE the first K-Pop girl group to reach this milestone. It also resulted in YouTube’s most popular music video in South Korea. And “Cheer Up” even made it to 3rd place on the US World Digital Song Sales.
Their next single, “TT”, from their 3rd album, “Twicecoaster: Lane 1”, topped the Gaon Chart for four weeks. The album was the highest-selling girl group album of 2016. Nineteen months after its debut, TWICE had already sold over 1.2 million albums.
The Year of “YES”
I’m going crazy because I can’t go to the TWICE concert on July 10th. But you know something? The starting place of the 5th TWICE world tour is almost the same as the starting place of their first tour. They started at the KPTO dome on the 5th, and on the 1st, they had their first concert at the SK Handball Gymnasium. The first tour included five concerts in S. Korea, 1 in Thailand, and 1 in Singapore. It lasted April 15th, 2017 until September 30, 2023, and for the fifth world tour it will be from April 15, 2023, to Sep. 30, 2023, and for part one, they will be in Australia and Japan.
June 28, 2017: TWICE debuted in Japan under Warner Music Japan. With the Japanese debut album, it charted at number 2 on the Oricon Albums Chart with the highest first-week album sales by a K-pop artist in Japan in two years. And, even more, TWICE became the first Korean girl group to earn a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of Japan for both an album and CD single in the same year, TWICE ranking third in the Top Artist category of Billboard Japan's 2017 Year-end Rankings. TWICE is the first female Korean to top both “Billboard's World Albums” and “World Digital Song Sales” charts with their album TWICEtagram, and its main song "Likey" in 2017.
Then, with the release of their single "Feel Special" in 2019, TWICE became the third female Korean act to chart on the Canadian Hot 100. And they also charted into the US Billboard 200 with “More & More” and “Eyes Wide Open” in 2020, “Taste of Love and Formula of Love: O+T=<3” in 2021, and “Between 1 & 2” in 2022. Their first English single, "The Feels" became their first song to enter the US Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart, at 83rd and 80th place on each chart.
Then, on June 24, 2022, one of the TWICE members, Nayeon, released a solo song with their album called “Im Nayeon” and it was number two on the Circle Chart for multiple weeks as well as being in the top ten in Japan, Malaysian, the Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan. In the Global 200 Billboard, Nayeon’s song reached 30th place!
Their most recent comeback “Ready to Be” was released on March 10th, 2023. The album became number one on the Circle Chart with over one million physical copies. In the United States, the album became number two on the Billboard 200 with over 145,500 sales, making TWICE the fourth top-ten charting South Korean group and the first female K-pop act to have three top-three albums in the country. The album sold 18,000 vinyl copies making it the highest first-week vinyl sales in the United States for any all-female group since 1991. It also reached the top ten in Japan, Germany, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, and Croatia.
In their album, the main song, “Set Me Free” TWICE discussed the meaning behind the song in their dance practice video. For the album is the first one of the year, Nayeon commented, “As this is our first comeback in nearly seven months and our first of 2023, we prepared diligently to showcase a new image to fans. I’m excited and looking forward to it because I think we’ll be able to show a concept and performance that’s different from our previous release.” Jihyo explained, “Our title track ‘SET ME FREE’ holds the meaning of ‘Let’s break away from everything that binds us and love freely, to our heart’s content.’ I figure that many people will be able to feel another kind of TWICE’s charms. I hope people listen to our song and watch our performance enjoyably.” When asked what makes the group feel free, Dahyun chose their fangroup Once. In late January, TWICE pre-released one of their songs in the album, “Moonlight Sunrise,” which became the group’s second song to debut on the Hot 100.
And today, their 10th Japanese Single, Hare Hare (it’s Ha-Rae Ha-Rae, not as in the animal Hare) will be released, even though their main song, Hare Hare, was pre-released on May 12, 2023.
It’s been a long time since I last gave you links, right? So I am going to give you links for today’s article.
Links: