Seo Taiji & Boys

Seo Taiji and Boys
Seo Taiji in 2014
Background information
Origin	Seoul, South Korea
Genres	Hip hop pop rap rock alternative rock alternative metal
Years active	1992 (1992)–1996
Labels	Bando Eumban Yedang Company
Past members	Seo Taiji Yang Hyun-suk Lee Juno

Seo Taiji and Boys (Hangul: 서태지와 아이들) was a South Korean music group active from 1992 to 1996. Its three members Seo Taiji, Yang Hyun-suk and Lee Juno experimented with many different genres of popular Western music. Seo Taiji and Boys were highly successful and are credited with changing the South Korean music industry. In April 1996, Billboard reported that their first three albums had each sold over 1.6 million copies with the fourth nearing two million.

After the breakup of the heavy metal band Sinawe in 1991, Seo Taiji switched gears and formed the group Seo Taiji and Boys with dancers and backing vocalists Yang Hyun-suk and Lee Juno. Yang said he first met Seo when the musician came to him to learn how to dance. "Blown away" by his music, Yang offered to join the group and they later recruited Lee who was one of the top dancers in Korea. Similarly, Lee joined the group as a background dancer, despite being highly regarded in his own right, because the music "moved [his] heart." Seo Taiji came across MIDI technology for the first time in South Korea in the early 1990s and started experimenting with different MIDI sounds to create a new type of music that had not been heard by the public. He initially had no plans to debut as a dance/pop boy group and Seo Taiji and Boys' mainstream success was a surprise.

The trio debuted on MBC's talent show on April 11, 1992 with their song "Nan Arayo" (난 알아요, "I Know") and got the lowest rating from the jury. However, the song and their self-titled debut album became so successful that, according to MTV Iggy, "K-pop music would never be the same" again. "Nan Arayo" was a hugely successful hit; its new jack swing-inspired beats, upbeat rap lyrics and catchy choruses took Korean audiences by storm. It charted at the No. 1 spot for a record 17 weeks. Although, this has since been broken by Big Bang's "Lies", which topped the chart for 18 weeks.Spin named "Nan Arayo" number 4 on their 2012 list of the 21 Greatest K-Pop Songs of All Time. In 2015, Rolling Stone named it number 36 on its list of the 50 Greatest Boy Band Songs of All Time.