Girls’ Generation

Girls’ Generation (SNSD) Member Ages

Ranked from oldest to youngest.

Girls’ Generation (SNSD) Member Heights

Ranked from tallest to shortest.

Members and Position(s)

Members

Girls’ Generation is composed of eight members born between 1989 and 1991. Originally a nine-member group, Jessica departed in 2014 after 7 years with SNSD. Tiffany, Sooyoung, and Seohyun left SM Entertainment in 2017 but have not officially left Girls’ Generation.

Position(s)

Facts

• They are considered the most important group of the “second generation” of K-Pop girl groups. The immense popularity of the group in South Korea has earned them the titles of “Queens of the Hallyu Wave”, “The Singers of the Nation” and “The Girl Group of the Nation”.
• Before debuting, members Go A Ra, Lee Yeon Hee, Heo Chan Mi were dropped from the project; So Yeon (former member of T-ARA) left the group. Therefore, the company decided to pass the leadership to Taeyeon.
  • It was only mentioned once in a broadcast, but Taeyeon stopped being the leader for a short time due to stress and emotional pressure. Taeyeon had started sleepwalking due to the pressure of being a leader, and Sooyoung once admitted that it was terrifying to watch: “When Taeyeon sleeps, she solves math problems. Even though she is alone, she greets someone. In the middle of the night, she would also start using her phone. It was scary.” After dealing with all that stress and an additional incident where members had hurt her feelings, Taeyeon wanted to retire from her position as a leader. She stated on a TV show, “This is something I haven’t talked about before on the broadcast …. I stepped down from the leading position in Girls ‘Generation.” But she and the girls worked out their problems and she returned to being the leader soon after.
• In a group interview, the girls admitted that they hated their name when they first heard it. At that time, not many groups were named in Korean, so they were hoping for something cool in English. Originally, the group had been devised as a counterpart to Super Junior, so they called themselves “girl group” or “super girls.” It was a shock when they heard their name, and Sooyoung admitted that she cried, because they had trained for so long only to debut with what they thought was a very unremarkable group name. Later, they were grateful.
• For their debut the company wanted to use a fresh and innocent concept that involved everything about their appearance, to keep it as natural as possible they hardly used any makeup even during the filming of their music video, due to this unusual decision they were given the status as the rookie group with the best K-Pop visuals.
• Girls ‘Generation’s popular song “Into The New World” was supposed to be a single by the group M.I.L.K., but disbanded before the song was released.
  • The song was given to Girl’s Generation as the song previously chosen for their debut had mainly negative reactions among the members and it was not considered that it could be a hit song.
• Girls ‘Generation was the first group to train for overseas promotional activities before the debut; they learned to speak Japanese, Chinese and English for their international fans before it was common practice for idols.
• It is the K-Pop group that has won the most awards in Music Bank, having 38 wins, the first one being with the single Kissing You.
• Girls’Generation is the 4th most successful girl group in the world in terms of concert revenue, ranking among legends such as Destiny’s Child and Spice Girls.
• Of the top ten highest-grossing female group tours in history, five belong to Girls ‘Generation.
  • 4. Girls ‘Generation – Love & Peace Japan 3rd tour – $31.6 million
  • 6. Girls ‘Generation – Phantasia Tour – $ 22.3 million
  • 7. Girls ‘Generation – Girls & Peace Japan 2nd Tour – $21.5 million
  • 8. Girls ‘Generation – The 1st Japan Arena Tour – $ 14.98 million
  • 9. Girls ‘Generation – “Girls and Peace” World Tour – $ 14.97 million
• “Gee” won as a top song eight weeks in a row and took the top spot on KBS Music Bank for nine weeks in a row, breaking the record for most consecutive songs won at the time. This was their first hit song, as although they had some success with their eponymous first album in 2007, it wasn’t until 2009 with “Gee” that they rose to stardom and caused a stir. The song also ranked in Japan as the first non-Japanese single to reach the top 3 on the Orion chart since 1980. “Gee” was named song of the decade in Korea. It was named the most popular song of the 2000s in South Korea by Melon. The AllMusic site named it the top song of K-Pop in 2009. “Gee” is currently a great classic of Hallyu culture.
• Their June 2011 Japanese debut album reached its top position on Oricon and became the first album by a non-Japanese girl group to receive a million certificate by the Recording Industry Association of Japan.
• The group’s third Korean album, “The Boys”, released in October 2011, became the best-selling album of 2011 in South Korea with sales of over 380 000 copies.
• The video “I Got A Boy”, has over 208 million views, the first video of the group to get this amount of plays. The group’s success with “I Got A Boy” hit some of the competition hard as it beat out Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, One Direction and Demi Lovato.
• They are the first Asian girl group to achieve five MVs with over 100 million plays on YouTube: “Gee”, “I Got a Boy”, “The Boys”, “Mr. Taxi” and “Oh!”.
• It ranked 1st in the best-selling albums of 2015 beating groups such as BTS, EXO, BIGBANG and Super Junior, also being the only female group in the TOP 10.
• Billboard named them the best female K-Pop group.
• Billboard named Girls’ Generation the best group of the decade, calling their 2017 comeback one of the most epic.
• It is the only K-Pop group to appear on the 3 biggest TV channels in the USA: CBS – David Letterman Show, ABC – Kelly Ripa Show and NBC – Better Late Than Never.
• With over 65 concerts, Girls’ Generation has the most concerts of all female K-Pop groups, and 6th place in international groups overall.
• It set a new record by being the first female group to have 3 MVs with more than 150,000,000 million views.
• It is in the list of the 15 best-selling albums for the last 15 years. Each album represents the best-selling album in its year of release. SNSD is the only female group on the list, the article mentions: “This is impressive because they are the only female artists to appear on the list! Physical albums are dominated by male artists, so it was a great achievement for Girls’ Generation to have the best-selling album of 2011 selling 385,348 copies of ‘The Boys’ according to Gaon.”
• As of 2015, they have sold 571 million records, making them one of the best-selling girl groups of all time.
• Top most popular performances on Show Music Core of the official MBC Kpop YouTube channel: #1 Comeback Stage – CMIYC 10 million views; #2 Comeback Stage – Lion Heart 9.43 million views; #3 Comeback Stage – Mr. Mr. Mr. 9.42 million views; #4 Comeback Stage – You Think 8.85 million views.
• It remains in the Top album sales of female groups in history for the Gaon chart, and the only sub-unit in the top 10.
• Top 10 best-selling concerts in 2016 on YesAsia site, Phantasia in Japan was the #2 best-selling DVD/BR during 2016.
• It was K-Pop female group with the most overall views on YouTube throughout 2016.
• Billboard once again named Girls’ Generation as Korea’s biggest girlband. Moreover, they claim that their comeback and 10th anniversary will be the most important events for K-pop in 2017.
• It is the only K-Pop group to win in the “Youtube Music Awards” video of the year category.
• They have been able to write a successful career as a female group, with a decade of longevity, they are the latest group of the second generation of female K-Pop groups.
• It is the first K-Pop female group to have 5 MVs with over 100,000,000 views and the second in all of K-Pop.
• From February 1998 to January 2017, Girls’ Generation is the female group with the most music show wins with ‘Gee’, accumulating a total of 14 wins; 11 from KBS and 3 from SBS.  
• Billboard named “Gee” as the K-Pop song with the best chorus of the 21st century, mentioning that, “Before the chorus hits, the listener has been immersed in the world of Girls’ Generation’s “Gee.” The repetitive “Gee gee gee gee gee gee, baby baby baby” is the hook that splashes through the verses, all of the above is a sweet blast that rips off the chorus. A powerful blast of synths welcomes us into the chorus, seemingly signaling just how big this section is, leading us through the girls singing lines about being unexpectedly in love.”
• It dominates in the preferences of the viewing public in Music Bank. SNSD occupies the first 14 places and overall 36 places + 2 TTS of a top 50, which is very surprising.
• She is #2 in the top artists with the most #1 weeks on the weekly albums chart in Gaon’s history with Girls’ Generation being the only female group on the chart.
• Ranked #1 in album sales in the history of K-Pop female groups with a total of 7,488,920.
• It is in the top 5 female groups with the highest physical, digital and streaming sales according to the Gaon count, of all time: – Physical sales: SNSD #1 with 7,488,920 copies sold – Digital sales: SNSD #1 with 81,728,927 downloads – Online plays (streaming): SNSD #2 979,896,990 thus reaffirming its Billboard status as Asia’s most representative female group.
• Her fancafe has been closed since 2010, and in 2017 she maintains her #1 in fancafes of female groups with 233,644 fans.
• It is the #1 female group of plays in Xiami China. In the top 5 is Taeyeon and in the top 30 is Girls’ Generation-TTS and Tiffany.
• In 2012, the group debuted its first TTS sub unit.
• Girls ‘Generation included LGBTQ representatives in the Japanese MV for “LOVE&GIRLS” released in 2013 being the first group to do so. While this generated controversy at the time, the group has continued to show their support for the community, with Sooyoung wearing a gay pride shirt for their MV “Party” and inviting several female drag queen activists for their MV “All Night.”
• The song “I Got A Boy!” was originally written by Katy Tiz, a singer from the UK, under the name “Shiner On U”. Because the original lyrics were inappropriate in some parts it had to be re-produced for the kpop market.
• On September 30, 2014, Jessica officially stepped down as a member of Girls’ Generation due to differences with the group and the agency regarding her time management with her personal projects.
  • On June 21, 2015, screenshots of the music video made for “Catch Me If You Can” that included Jessica surfaced and the full video was leaked only hours later confirming that a previous music video existed and had been quickly re-made with all 8 members, this generated a strong controversy because according to previous official responses from SM the departure of jessica had been planned in advance, generating controversy over the veracity of the agency’s statements.
  • After the controversy, close sources stated that initially Jessica was supposed to take a short break after Girls ‘Generation finished its tour on the 24th. Supposedly, Jessica’s initial plan was to go on a break after Girl’s Generation’s Tokyo Dome tour, not to leave the group completely, because of this, The company and the members had prepared a farewell, the group prepared recorded “Catch Me If You Can” as their Tokyo Dome tour single, and it had been decided that “Divine” would be Jessica’s farewell song for Sones before her hiatus. But after Jessica had doubts and asked to stay in the group, the members, who had already prepared for her farewell concert and hiatus plans, did not want to let her return to the group which ended up in a joint meeting with SM while Jessica was abroad which ended up in her expulsion; after the concert the music video of the single had to be re-recorded with the eight members generating the existence of the two versions.
• The song ‘Sailling (0805)’ is a collaboration with Station.
• In the ‘Beep Beep’ video, green screen was used, but the giant phone was real.
• Following Holler’s performance at POP STAR 6, Girls’ Generation-TTS was trending #1 and Holler #6 in real-time searches on MelOn.
• In the survey done by Soompi in 2017 when choosing the best fandom, SONE was ranked #5 making Girls’ Generation the only female group within the Top 10.
• The group participated in a concert on April 1, which focused on supporting Korean and Vietnamese multicultural families and was held in Hanoi, Vietnam.
• She has broken all her previous records by selling over 150,000 copies of her album Holiday Night. It reached the top of the most listened albums by Billboard, being the second female group to do so.
• In the top 5 K-Pop albums that have been in the world album chart by iTunes in 2017 ranking second and being the only female group to be in that top.
• Ranked #5 in sales for the 3rd quarter of 2017! ‘Holiday Night’ #1 in female group albums of this quarter and reaches this figure with lack of stock and only 1 week of promotion.
• On October 9, 2017, members Sooyoung, Seohyun and Tiffany were confirmed to be leaving SM Entertainment due to termination of their contracts, however their departure from the group is unconfirmed. In an official statement, SM Entertainment said, “Girls’ Generation is a group that is precious and meaningful to SM and its fans. The members also have no thoughts of disbanding at all. Simply, there are some members’ contracts that have ended, a careful decision will be made after discussing with the girls about the direction of Girls’ Generation’s future activities.”
• In November 2017, 4 years after its release, Girls ‘Generation’s ‘I Got a Boy’ reached 200 million views on youtube. Due to the lack of congratulations or comments from SM Entertainment the group’s leader Taeyeon informed fans of the event, “The music video of ‘I Got a Boy’ reached 200 million views. Thanks and congratulations to everyone who worked on the video, Girls ‘Generation members and fans. But SM, aren’t you guys happy? What are you guys doing?”
• Girls ‘Generation is known to have achieved great popularity in North Korea, to the point that the country decided to have its own version of Girls ‘Generation “The Wang Je San Light Music Band” with versions of some of the songs in the government-approved musical style.
• He has his own magazine called ‘SONE NOTE’.
• Girls ‘Generation members are not allowed to leave their spot during Fansigns as among them they have a tradition that if one member leaves to go to the restroom, another member will get up to doodle on their promotional photo.
• It was confirmed by the agency that Yuri has composed the vast majority of songs for the group, however, she did not want this to be revealed. Songs such as XYZ are the few in which her participation has been acknowledged.
• On May 28, it was reported that the five members of Girls ‘Generation under SM Entertainment will film a new reality show. In response, SM Entertainment confirmed, “Taeyeon, YoonA, Hyoyeon, Yuri and Sunny will be filming for a reality show in France. The program is expected to show the members’ honest and funny sides as they embark on a joint vacation. The airing date is yet to be decided.
• He has 3 videos with more than 200 Million, I Got A Boy, The Boys and Gee.
• Releasing their Lightstick after 11 years of career, “Hasn’t an official light stick been released for Girls’ Generation?” a fan asked. Taeyeon expressed, “Do you think one wouldn’t be released? Of course, we will release one.
• Their songs Into The New World and Gee, are some of the songs that have been covered by other newer groups and even internationally.
• Due to its immense popularity, in the game League Of Lengends two female characters of this game dance Run Devil Run, Genie and Hoot.

Links

• Official Web Site
• Official Japanese Web Site
• U.S.A. Official Site
• Official Facebook
• Official Japanese Facebook
• Official Instagram
• Official Twitter
• Official Youtube Channel