This icon unveiled the behind-the-scenes tale of the groundbreaking “nude”album among idols in K-pop history.
On May 19, the latest episode of “Famous Song Championship”was uploaded on the YouTube channel, “MMTG“, featuring comedian JaeJae and Girls’ Generation’s Sooyoung as the hosts.
This program is specifically focused on K-pop and shares little-known anecdotes about beloved K-pop classics that have been cherished by multiple generations.
On this day, Jun Jin, a member of the long-standing K-pop group SHINHWA, made an appearance as a guest and shared numerous behind-the-scenes stories about their many hit songs.
Jun Jin expressed dissatisfaction with his various hit albums and their dynamic concepts, stating:
“Because we’ve been releasing so many albums, we can’t really come up with a new concept.”
MC Sooyoung then made a comment:
“So, you tried something new and released a nude album.”
Flustered, Jun Jin waved his hand and proceeded to explain:
“That wasn’t the concept.”
Jun Jin explained that they decided to show their skin for their “Wild”photo shoot due to a specific reason.
“If it weren’t for photographer Kim Jung Man, we probably wouldn’t have filmed it. But also, if this had been completely nude, I wouldn’t have done it, but it was semi-nude.”
In 2001, SHINHWA, who was signed with SM Entertainment, was given the suggestion by founder Lee Soo Man to do a semi-nude concept. This resulted in the release of a photo book featuring their nude photos, including their exposed buttocks, which sold over 15,000 copies. This was a remarkable accomplishment for a first-generation K-pop group.
After a blind test, the photographer chose Jun Jin to take the butt exposure photos when questioned about the selection process.
“Photographer Kim Jung Man wanted Jun Jin (me) to do it. He saw all the members (lined up) like this. He saw them. If I had done that, I might have hurt my pride. But now that I’m filming and because my hair is long, it feels a bit like Tarzan. So he just wanted to film it and we did it.”
Continuing on, after JaeJae inquired with the other K-pop idols at the studio about the possibility of doing a semi-nude photoshoot, GOT7’s Youngjae responded:
“Ah, I can do it if all the members do it, but I can’t do it alone.”
Sunwoo of THE BOYZ then amused the audience with his confident statement:
“I don’t think I will do it as a group.”
Despite debuting in 1998, SHINHWA has remained an active and successful boy group, holding the title of the longest-promoting group for 26 years and counting.
Despite having a successful career, Jun Jin revealed that they came close to disbanding, recounting:
“At the time, we had debuted with our first album and were releasing our second album. We declared in advance that if this second album didn’t do well, we would go our separate ways and we would disband. So we worked really hard for our first album, but we worked even harder for our second album and then we received a song called T.O.P and it won first place.
If we didn’t, we would have disbanded.”
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