Jewelry (group)
| Jewelry | |
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Jewelry in August 2011
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Seoul, South Korea |
| Genres | K-pop |
| Years active | 2001–2015 |
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| Past members |
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Jewelry (Korean: 쥬얼리) was a South Korean girl group formed in 2001 by Star Empire Entertainment. The group was the longest-running Korean girl group (with more than 2 members) until their disbandment in 2015, surpassing super-group Baby V.O.X.
Jewelry founding members Park Jung-ah, Lee Ji-hyun, Jun Eun-mi and Jung Yoo-jin debuted in 2001 with their first album Discovery. After less-than-stellar sales of the first album, two of the singers (Jun Eun-mi and Jung Yoo-jin) were replaced by Seo In-young and Cho Min-ah.
A year later, their second album, Again, was released, with much better results. Full of strong R&B ballads (as opposed to the sexy dance songs that were popular at that time), the album quickly yielded two high-charting singles — "Again" and "Tonight" — which started the group's rise to popularity. This was quickly followed by their third album Beloved, which had a very cutesy theme. Their first single "니가 참 좋아" ("I Really Like You") was very poppy and had Jewelry adopt a cutesy concept to match the song, with colorful outfits and perky dances. The title track, Be My Love, was also promoted. Even though album sales for Again and Beloved were great, the group was unhappy with their current image, and did not want to be known for only their cute and innocent songs.
After the success of their second album, Jewelry left for Japan to start on their career there in 2004 with their first single Kokoro ga Tomaranai under the independent label Giza Studio. After releasing a few materials there with mediocre sales, the group eventually left to return to their native country to release their fourth album.
By the time their fourth album Superstar came out in the beginning of 2005, Jewelry has since shed their "cute image" concept. Following the trend in Korean pop, they became sexier and more womanly, which helped bring about their current level of success. The first single "Superstar" (written by Shinhwa member Lee Min-woo) was a driven rock song and surprisingly became a huge hit. They followed this up with the sexy R&B number "Passion", which also charted strongly. Both of these singles prominently featured "sexy" member Seo In-Young dance scantily-clad in short shorts, which brought the group much press attention (both positive and negative).
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