With a successful debut on December 1, 2021, let’s look back at Starship Entertainment’s promising new K-group.
1. ‘Eleven’
We’ve been waiting five years for Starship Entertainment to unveil a new female K-group, and we weren’t disappointed with IVE. Composed of members YuJin, WonYoung, GaEul, Rei, LIZ, and LeeSeo, the group made its remarkable debut during a showcase to which Kpopmap was invited. The group was unveiled on November 28, 2011, when the agency posted a teaser by the name of ‘Eleven’. When the video clip was finally unveiled, it was a real surge of popularity that fell on the six young women. From then on, everyone had only the word IVE in their mouths and hummed passages of the song, such as “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, you make me feel like 11”. The choreography of ‘Eleven’ also marked the spirits, since it begins with the members of the group on the ground, dancing only with their hands. This first single had already caught the attention of the public with the debut of the group since two of the members, YuJin and WonYoung, were part of the popular K-group IZ*ONE created after a survival show. The other members were introduced during a short video below released on November 12, 2021, and also attracted attention with their beauty. Two, in particular, LeeSeo because she was a model for SM Kids and Rei as she is the agency’s first Japanese idol. Once their debut was made, the singers quickly became popular thanks to their voice and their charisma on stage, particularly LIZ. This was seen during the performances of ‘Eleven’, but also of ‘ROYAL’ which is the B-Side of their debut single.
‘Eleven’ was very well received by the public and received thirteen music show awards, the first only a week after IVE’s debut on December 8, 2021, at “Show Champion”. The single even sold over a 380.000 copies.
2. ‘Love Dive’
‘Love Dive’ is the group’s first comeback, released on April 5 this year, and won ten awards. Between the promotions of ‘Eleven’ and ‘Love Dive’, the singers did not remain inactive since some posed for magazines. Indeed, WonYoung graced the cover of Harper’s BAZAAR Korean in December, and LIZ was featured in Olive Young’s ad campaign for vegan products in February. In addition, YuJin was MC for the show “Inkigayo”, and quit to prepare for the comeback ‘Love Dive’ on March 27, a year after debuting. The six members of IVE are active in various fields, since of course, with such popularity, they have all participated in various projects and those mentioned above are only examples. When IVE made its comeback, it was again a phenomenal success. The song invites people to dive into love but has a double meaning. Indeed, the group’s fanclub name is DIVE, so it’s easy to think that ‘Love Dive’ is a hidden message to fans. The singers enchant with their beauty, being portrayed as cupids in the clip. Particularly, the phrase “Narcissistic, my god I love it” attracts attention as well as the dance that accompanies it as can be seen in the gif above. Even more popular than ‘Eleven’, the album reached 710,000 sales. One of the possible interpretations of the clip is the scene where LeeSeo is in a heart-shaped swimming pool. Indeed, thinking back to the phrase “Narcissistic, my god I love it”, we can make the connection between LeeSeo and Narcissus who, wishing to observe his reflection in a lake because being in love with himself, ended up falling into it and drown. A few days before the comeback, a teaser was released where we can discover IVE answering questions, addressed to “Dear. Cupid”. The first, “Who is cupid?" seems obvious, and as a musical background, we can hear the words “I just want a little bit of peace and love”. IVE introduces the public to its daily cupid’s life.
3. ‘After Like’
A few weeks ago, on August 22 to be exact, IVE made a comeback with the song ‘After Like’. Today, the clip has more than 80 million views and aroused surprise since in the song we can hear a very famous sample, that of ‘I will survive’ by Gloria Gaynor. It is therefore with a slightly retro concept that the group begins a new period of promotion. More than the words, the dance is memorable because it is a continuation of ‘Love Dive’ since a movement mimics a bow shooting an arrow before hitting us in the heart. Again, during the break to prepare for the comeback, the members did not sit idly by. WonYoung and LeeSeo took part in an ad campaign for PEPSI along with other artists from Starship Entertainment. Rei also launched the ‘Gyaru Peace’ trend, coming straight from Japan. Very quickly, many idols followed her examples to stand out from the traditional ‘Peace sign’. On September 7, IVE received its sixth win for ‘After Like’, and the promotional period is still not over. Regarding the group’s life, the members share a dormitory divided into four rooms: one for YuJin, one for WonYoung, one for LIZ, and a larger one that Rei, LeeSeo, and GaEul share. They explain this choice by stating that the members who wanted to spend time together were in the large room while the members who like to spend time alone have a private room. As the young women said during their debut showcase: “They want to prove that they are the best of the best through their teamwork”. IVE is a very promising group, which may win the Rookie of the Year award at the end-of-the-year awards ceremonies. What do you think about them? Let us know in the comments below!
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