Korean Media News

“Until Now It Is Only 60 Points, We Will Earn The Rest By Working Hard.”

The rookie group which just debuted two months ago are writing a new history in the K-Pop industry. The heroes, EXO, are from Korea’s best K-Pop representative company, SM Entertainment (aka SM), in which the company is presenting a new group 2 years after f(x) and 4 years after the male group SHINee.

An extraordinary achievement as rookies, they recorded 100,000 sales a month after their debut and achieved 1^stplace on the Korean music charts. They also received attention overseas since they got 1^st place on Tower Record’s charts even though they didn’t officially have their debut yet in Japan, nor have any activities there.

EXO is composed of two units, EXO-K which is promoting in Korea and EXO-M which is promoting in China. Prior to their debut, they had 100 days global promotion and successfully debuted in Korea and China through large-scale showcases.

EXO-K consists of Suho, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, D.O, Kai, and Sehun, and they managed to show a charisma on stage that isn't possessed by any other rookies, and they are coming up as this year’s best rookies. All six of the members have great visual looks, perfect dance, and also the singing skills that caused them to get all the love from the fangirls.

EXO-K's song "MAMA", which was composed by Yoo Youngjin, has an epic orchestral sound that gives a more mysterious atmosphere to their performance, with a sharp synth and guitar riff during the dance break and a powerful shouting part which makes the song become more attractive. It properly shows us the revival of the SMP (SM Music Performance: SM Entertainment’s special music performance).

“You can sense that we are representing SM with the SMP, a genre that our past seniors already did, but we are really proud to be able to do it. We received the song first and then studied it while watching H.O.T or Shinhwa seniors' performances. We are also in a great pressure because we had to do better as it has been a long time since the SMP was used, but we took pride in it and are trying our best to reach the expectations.”

Since EXO-K is the new group from the K-Pop stars cradle, SM, who produced BoA, DBSK, SNSD, Super Junior, SHINee, and f(x), they have got a high expectation even before their debut, both from the fans and also the music representatives. They must have been really pressured as well because of that. How did EXO-K overcome that pressure?

“It’s true that we felt a lot of pressure. We knew that the expectations were high for us, since we are the group that will be debuting under SM. The 100 days of promotion were not a short period at all, and during that time, we can also feel that the expectation from fans for us had risen. So we worked even harder to live up to the high expectations. Even we took it as a challenge for us to be stronger. We are still pressured but we will work even harder in order to not ruining the reputations of our seniors. 

EXO-K and EXO-M are currently promoting "MAMA" in Korea and China at the same time. Is there any rivalry between these 2 units during the promotions period?

“Since we spent most of our time training together with EXO-M members, we have become friends and family to each other, instead of rivals. We monitors each other’s stage and gives advice to each other. We put more efforts for both of us to success together. Because EXO-K and EXO-M are in one group as EXO, we are able to promote happily”

On May 20, EXO-K who participated in "SMTOWN LIVE World Tour" at LA, had already managed to have a concert abroad, only two months after their debut.

“We were dreaming of becoming singers like our SM seniors such as DBSK, Super Junior, SNSD and others, so knowing that we are all standing on the same stage with them was exciting and overwhelming. Even though our shedule only lasted for a short period of 3 days and 2 nights, we really felt a lot of things while watching our seniors' awesome images on stage. The overseas fans had prepared a lot of fan boards for us and sang our songs with us too. We felt really amazed and thankful at the same time. We were really amazed and thankful with the response.”

There were so many rookies debuting into the music industry during this year compared to any other years. Among all these groups, what is actually the strong point of EXO-K?

“We felt that our strongest point is that we are able to promote in both Korea and China using the same songs with EXO-M. We also have n limitless potential and always prepared to show new images on stage, and that is because we have a lot of things to show to our fans. We want to attain this year's best rookie award. We also want EXO to be recognized not only in Asia, but also by all the people around the world. We hope you can enjoy watching us and also listening to our music.”


Source : AsiaTodayTranslation by : AzianHana @ CXOEdited by : y_nathz @ CXO