Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Expanding overseas and solo activities


After the breakthrough success in South Korea, Big Bang ventured out overseas towards Japan. Kicking off 2008, their first Japanese album For the World was released, with previous singles appearing on the album, in addition to a Japan-only song, "How Gee" (a new remix version from "How Gee" by Black Machine). All their previous songs were also re-recorded in English.[17] For The World debuted at #14 on the Oricon chart (the official music chart in Japan) and eventually crawled its way to #10, despite lack of promotions.[18] On the 28th and 29th of March, Big Bang held their own concert in JCB hall in Tokyo Dome City. The group then proceeded to release a 4th mini-album in late May titled With U, with a corresponding single of the same name. Aside from the title single, the mini-album included many of their earlier hits, such as "Last Farewell" and "This Love", rerecorded in English. The solo song "My Girl", sung by Tae Yang, was also rerecorded into Japanese.

Upon returning to Korea soon after their Japanese activities, the members separated into their own individual solo activities. While the youngest member, Seungri, tried his luck in theatre by starring in musicals such as Sonagi (based on the popular, classic novel) earlier the year and is set to act in his first movie, "Why did you come home?" starring Kang Hae-Jung (which will release in theaters in November), member Tae Yang finally released his anticipated solo mini-album, Hot, which proved to be a success, topping online and public charts with its lead single, "Look At Me Only". The decidedly R&B album and its lead single was heavily choreographed with dance moves that were later parodied by many comedians. G-Dragon soon after released a digital remake version of the single entitled "Look Only at Me 2", which was not as heavily promoted. Instead, G-Dragon spent much of the first half of the year composing and producing songs for other artists, such as collaborating with pop-star Uhm Jung Hwa in her album, Disco. Dae-Sung also released a digital single — surprisingly, it was a trot number titled, "Gwisoon, Look at Me" (a composition-gift from G-Dragon) that was rather successful. While promoting the single, he spent time on variety programs, regularly appearing in SBS Yoo Jae-Suk's "Family Outing". T.O.P, on the other hand, collaborated with several artists, being featured in several popular singles such as Gummy's I'm Sorry and Uhm Jung Hwa's Disco.

On August 8, 2008, Big Bang reunited to release their 3rd mini-album, Stand Up — which featured collaborations with the group Daishi Dance, and Korean rock-band No-Brain in their latest punk rock single Oh My Friend[19] — promoting it with the lead song, "Day By Day" (하루하루). Like previous albums, leader G-Dragon was heavily involved with the production of the album, having compose and written a majority of the songs with the exception of "A Good Man" - which was composed by fellow group member T.O.P. The mini-album had exceeded the 100,000 mark for sales, a breakthrough for the group.[20]

Stand Up has so far yielded some of Big Bang's strongest singles, with the lead single "Day By Day" topping several online charts[21] and staying at the number-one spot for 6 consecutive weeks.[22] In addition, severals of their songs also made it to the Top 20 of the charts, with "Heaven" at the number two spot, "Oh My Friend" being ninth, "Nice Person" at twelfth and "Lady" being sixteenth - a total of five songs in the Top 20 for the group.

On the 6th of October 2008, Big Bang's title track "Number 1" from their album of the same name was leaked onto the internet. This is their 3rd Japanese album, and their first full one.

On Oct. 22, 2008, Big Bang's "Number 1" reached 3rd on Japan's Oricon album chart.

A few months after Stand Up, Big Bang was propelled to make another album. Now Big Bang has put out a album titled Remember. The album contains songs from their past album which have been remixed or modified. It contains new songs such as Sunset Glow (붉은노을), a song that has been redone by many artists. It also features a song called Strong Baby, a solo by Seung-Ri. The song Sunset Glow has reached number 1 in many charts and many of the album's songs are rising in rank. Another song which became a hit was Oh Ah Oh(오아오) Marking the end of their promotions for group song: Sunset glow, Big Bang's member Seung Ri will continue with promotions of his solo song. Strong Baby is an upbeat pop song that will allow Seung Ri to showcase a mature image of himself through dancing in which he has choreographed the routine himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_(group)

Big Bang- Last Farewell

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