iKon (South Korean band)
iKon (Hangul: 아이콘), stylized as iKON, is a South Korean boy band formed
in 2015 by YG Entertainment. The group was first
introduced in the reality survival program WIN: Who is Next as
"Team B." After that, Team B went on to appear in the 2014 reality
survival program Mix & Match, which determined the final
seven-member lineup of iKon: B.I, Bobby,
Jinhwan, Ju-ne, Yunhyeong, Donghyuk and Chanwoo.
The group released their debut studio
album Welcome Back (2015), which
debuted atop the South Korean Gaon Album
Chartand produced the number-one singles "My Type",
"Apology" and "Dumb & Dumber" and three top-ten
singles "Rhythm Ta", "Airplane" and "Anthem", the
album was commercially a success, selling 260,000 copies in Asia, and the songs
sold 4.8 million copies, which lead the group to win several best new artist
awards on major Asia awards, including Mnet Asian Music Awards, Japan Record Award and QQ Music
Awards. The following two years, the group released two singles
"#WYD"
and "New Kids: Begin", and they focused on
touring with their first Asia tour, and several Japanese tours. The group's second
studio album Return was released on January 25,
2018.
History
2013–2014: Pre-debut and formation
Prior to the group's formation, group
leader B.I featured
on MC Mong's 2009 song "Indian Boy". He performed with MC Mong at the
2009 SBS Dream
Concert, as well as on You
Hee-yeol's Sketchbook. Group vocalist Ju-ne also made a
pre-debut appearance aged thirteen on the SBS variety show Star
King. He also competed on SBS's K-pop Star in
2011. On 3 January 2011, B.I and Jinhwan joined YG Entertainment as
trainees, as did Bobby a
week later. The three trained together for a year and formed the basis of what
was to become "Team B". On 18 April 2012, Ju-ne and Yunhyeong
joined Team B, followed by Donghyuk as the sixth and final member on 5 November
2012.
In 2013, B.I, Bobby, Jinhwan, Ju-ne,
Donghyuk, and Yunhyeong competed as Team B on the Mnet reality survival
show WIN: Who Is Next, competing against other trainees in
"Team A" for the chance to debut as a group. The program involved
three rounds of performances and public voting, after which Team B eventually
lost to Team A, who debuted as Winner. During the
program, Team B released two singles: "Just Another Boy" and
"Climax". The members of Team B appeared as backup dancers in Taeyang's music video for
"Ringa Linga".
In June 2014, Team B appeared in the reality
survival program Mix & Match, a follow-up to WIN: Who
Is Next. The aim of the show was to determine the final lineup of iKon,
According to YG Entertainment CEO Yang Hyun-suk, the group's
name derives from the intent to become an 'icon for Korea', hence the
'K'. While Bobby, B.I, and Jinhwan were confirmed members, the remaining
members of Team B competed against three new trainees; Jung Jin-hyeong, Yang Hong-seok, and Jung Chan-woo, who had previously
appeared on Korean television as a child actor. It was reported that 150,000 fans
applied to attend the final performance of the show, and before the
announcement of iKon's official lineup, YG Entertainment's blog server crashed.
The final lineup contained the three remaining members of Team B, with the
addition of Chanwoo.
Following the programs success, the iKon
members held fan meetings in Korea, Japan, and China. In September,
approximately 40,000 Japanese fans applied for 2,000 tickets at a fan meeting
at Osaka Tojima River
Forum, while more than 50,000 Chinese fans applied for their fan meeting
in Beijing. The program was
aired on 29 December 2014 on the CS channel in Japan. On 15 December 2014,
iKon performed as the opening act at Bigbang's Japan Dome Tour 2014-2015 X. On 28 January
2015, Billboard listed
the group as one of the "Top 5 K-Pop Artists to Watch in 2015". They
were the only group on the list that had yet to debut.
2015: Debut and Welcome Back
Following several postponements, iKon's
official debut was announced on YG Entertainment's website for 15 September
2015. It was revealed that the group would be releasing their debut album Welcome
Back in two parts, with 6 of the 12 tracks being title tracks. The
first half of the album, Debut Half Album, was set to be released
on 1 October, followed by the Debut Full Album on November 2.
The track listing for the first half-album was released on 24 September. Group
leader B.I was credited as the producer and co-composer for all of the album's
tracks, with B.I and Bobby contributing to lyrics for all tracks and vocalist
Ju-ne participating in the composition of title track "Rhythm Ta".
iKon debuted with the 'pre-single' "My
Type" was released with a music video on 15 September 2015. Within 24
hours of its release, the music video for "My Type" surpassed 1.7
million views on YouTube.[11] The group took their first music show win with the single on 26
September 2015 on MBC's Music Core, even
though they had yet to make their first official live appearance. On 24
September, "My Type" achieved a 'triple crown' on the Gaon chart, having
taken the number one spot on the digital, download, and streaming charts
simultaneously for the 39th week of 2015. On 18 September, the single became
number one on the music video chart of Chinese music streaming sites QQ Music
and Youku. iKon also trended
on Weibo, where they were
reportedly searched 1.3 billion times.
iKon's Debut Half Album was
released digitally on 1 October. The group held their first concert, Showtime,
on 3 October at the Seoul Olympic Gymnastics Arena. The show sold out 13,000
tickets. The concert's taking place at the largest concert hall in Korea was
unprecedented for a new K-pop group. SHOWTIME was broadcast
live through Naver's V App and streamed by over 500,000 viewers.
On 4 October, a day after their debut
concert, the group made their music show debut on SBS's Inkigayo with
"Rhythm Ta" and "Airplane", receiving their third music
show win for "My Type" in person. On 8 October, they won on
Mnet's M!Countdown with
"Rhythm Ta". According to the Gaon Music Charts, iKon
topped the weekly album sales charts with the first half of Welcome
Back for 4–10 October.
During October, iKon embarked on a series of
Japanese fan meetings titled "iKontact" in Tokyo, Aichi, Fukuoka and
Osaka, attended by 26,600 fans. At the end of that month, iKon received a MelOn
All-Kill Popularity award and had sold 82,208 copies of Debut Half Album
- Welcome Back. On 28 October, it was announced that the full album's release
would be delayed to 14 December, with two additional digital singles released
on 16 November.
Two digital singles, "Apology" and
"Anthem", were released on 16 November. "Apology" took the
number one spot on Gaon's digital chart for the 48th week of 2015. On 24 December, three new singles, "Dumb & Dumber",
"What's Wrong?" and "I Miss You So Bad" were released.
2016: Japanese debut, Asian arena tours and new music
On January 13, 2016, the group made their
Japanese debut with Japanese version of their album Welcome
Back, the album sold 61,508 copies in its first week of release,
and charted third on the Oricon Weekly chart, earning them New Artist Award and Best New Artist Award in 58th
Japan Record Award. With the Korean edition the album sold over
100,000 copies in Japan in the end of 2016.
On 17 March 2016, YG Entertainment announced
that iKon would be holding their first Asia Tour iKoncert 2016: Showtime Tour with dates in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. On July 1, their
agency announced the band's second Japanese arena tour entitled iKon Japan Tour 2016. The tour was set to visit five
cities for a total of 14 concerts with an attendance of 150,000 fans. Later,
the company announced the addition of two shows to be held in Tokyo due to more
demands in tickets thus, raising the attendance to 176,000 people from six
cities. The completion of the second tour pegs the band's total concert
attendance during its debut year at 322,000. In November 14, YGEX announced a second leg of iKon Japan Tour in
2017 due to the success of the arena tour, and to visit Yokohama Arena for the
first time. The second leg gathered 120,000 fans from three cities, to rise the
attendance of the tour to 296,000 from 25 shows.
On 30 May, the group released the digital
single "#WYD"
(short for "What You Doing"). The song debuted at number three on
the Gaon
Digital Chart. On August 10, the release of iKon's first
original Japanese single Dumb & Dumber was announced. The single was
released on September 28 with a CD+DVD version and a CD version. It debuted at
number one on both the Oricon Daily Single Album Chart and the Oricon Weekly
Single Album Chart.
The group participate on Chinese dance
survival program Heroes
of Remix in mid 2016, alongside Psy as their mentor. They were the
most winning artist in the show, winning three weeks, and gaining a good
reviews for their performances. But due to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) issue,
the group was entirely edited out from the last episodes of the
show. Their activities in the show and touring in China lead them to win
Asian Most Popular Korean Group in China Music Awards, Best
Group in Netease Attitude Awards, and Best New Force Group and
Album of the Year in QQ Music Awards.
2017–present: Japan Dome tour, New Kids and Return
On February 11, 2017, it was announced that
iKon will start their first
dome tour, with two shows set to be on Kyocera Dome and Seibu Prince Dome, with
90,000 fans expected to come. This mark them as the fastest group to make
a concert in Japan dome since debut. On June 18, an additional 22 concerts
in eight Japanese cities were announced by YGEX, with 233,000 fans expected to
attend their concerts, making it the longest and the largest arena tour held by
the band in Japan.
On March 2, 2017, YG Entertainment confirmed
that iKon begun shooting two music videos for their new album that was set to
be released in April, during the shooting of the music video Chanwoo
injured his ankle and consequently, the music video shoot got delayed. It
was confirmed that they will release a new series albums under the name New
Kids and to be released continuously during 2017, the series start on
May 22, with the title New Kids: Begin.
iKon had a long-waited comeback with their
second studio album named Return on
January 25, 2018. Their main track is “Love Scenario,” which is a
mellow, yet relatively upbeat, reaction to breaking up, with a circuitous
melody that guides the rhythmic dance track. Their second studio album features
12 tracks that were all co-written or feature lyrics by members B.I and Bobby
including Psy, BIGBANG's Taeyang, and Epik High's Tablo, also had a role in
songwriting tracks alongside some frequent collaborators, including Choice37
and Teddy Park.
On February 5, their title track “Love
Scenario” reached number one on numerous digital platforms such as iChart,
Melon, Genie, Bugs, Mnet, Naver, and Soribada, and also number one on the
real-time, weekly chart Instiz’s iChart. They are the second boy band to ever
have achieved number one on more than seven music charts since iChart began
ranking songs in 2010, with BIGBANG having previously accomplishing a similar
feat. "Love Scenario" also topped the Gaon Weekly chart for six
weeks, the first artist to achieve this milestone. The group was named top
artists of the first half of 2018 by Genie Music, as they topped
daily chart for 35 days.
iKon completed their three-part New
Kids album series with the release of their first and second extended
play, New
Kids: Continue and New
Kids: The Final in August and October 2018 respectively.
Members
·
Jinhwan (진환)
· Yunhyeong (윤형)
·
Donghyuk (동혁)
Discography
Tours
Headlining
·
iKoncert: Showtime Tour (2016)
·
Japan Tour (2016–17)
·
Japan Dome Tour (2017)
·
Japan Tour (2018)
·
Continue Tour (2018–present)
Joint tours
Opening act
Filmography
Sc : Wikipedia, Img : Pinterest
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