GFriend

Concept: Innocent AF, and uh…. Girl Crush-ish now
Debut: January 16th, 2015
Debut Song(s): Glass Bead
Fandom Name: BUDDY
Status: Active
Agency: Source Music Entertainment

Members
Group Biography
Main Tracks
Side Tracks
X-Girlfriend Tracks

Members

Prime Lineup

1. SinB (Hwang Eun Bi) 황은비

Role: Main Dancer, Center, Vocalist

Active (sing OSTs)

-Is a VIP (FAN OF BIG BANG. thankfully, her favorite member is G.Dragon (he’s also her ideal type), not Seungri…)
-Is a Potterhead (according to her, she’s a Gryffindor, but how could she be when she gets scared easily watching scary movies hmmmm??)
-Has a habit of putting things in her skirts (Has her own twitter too)

2. Umji (Kim Ye Won) 문별이

Role: Lead Rapper, Youngest Member

Active

-Is a huge Disney fans. Mainly self-taught herself English by watching Disney movies (her favorite is The Little Mermaid), listening and singing to Disney songs (DISNEY)
-Despite being the youngest of the group, she is the counselor of the group, to whom members go to when they have problems
-Grew up a rich girl (her father is the CEO of a famous dentist group called Moa Dentist (probably part of the reason she cried for 3 days when she was told her stage name would be “Umji”, which means “thumb” in Korean)
-Has a TOTALLY UNTRUE nickname of being “the ugliest idol”

3. Yerin (Jung Ye Rin) 정예린

Role: Lead Dancer, Center, Main Vocalist, VIP

Active

-Sucks at finding someone to hitchhike so if you’re stuck with her on the side of the road, you’re going to have to walk LMAO (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDLy3UrsFwY)
-Lesbian Yerin is best Yerin (Handsy action!) (SinB is the one who has to take a lot of this ahahah)
-Self-proclaimed funniest member of GFriend (along with Yuju) (I mean with dance moves like these, who won’t laugh?)

4. Yuju (Choi Yu Na) 최유나

Role: Main Vocalist

Active

-Probably best vocalist among Generation 3 (although pretty much a hidden gem because more people know about Mamamoo’s vocal “powerhouse”)
-Participated in K-Pop Star 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQPOEM9UybA), where she was rejected by JYP and thus eliminated (it’s ok Yuju, JYP has a long history of rejecting future Kpop stars for some reason, including: IU, Hyorin (Sistar), Choa (AOA), J-Hope (BTS), etc.). Was also a former LOEN and CUBE trainee before finally debuting with Source Music Entertainment (she really was rejected by everyone ☹)
-The weird member of the group (which is impressive considering this group contains Yerin) (Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2)
-Has a habit of clapping while sleeping???

5. Eunha (Jung Eun Bi) 정은비

Role: Lead Vocalist

Active

-The ageyo member of the group ( video of ageyo ) (I guess it makes sense then that she’s close friends with Twice’s Sana)
-Is too honest, so much that their agency won’t allow her to do solo Vlive before comebacks because she will answer questions honestly and spoil things
-Her dream is to be a jobless lazy bum who can still afford to eat and sleep because that’s the only things she want to do.
-Had a rare form of cancer during childhood that was then successfully cured

6. Sowon (Kim So Jung) 김소정

Role: Visual, Leader, Main Rapper

Active

-Has legs for dayssss (her legs are supposedly 3’8” long (so basically only a foot shorter than Izone’s Nako’s full height RIP Nako)
-The main rapper but hardly ever rap in any song (Gfriend’s songs typically don’t have a lot of rap either so I guess it’s not her fault)
-Almost debuted with P.B. as her stage name, which stood for Perfect and Beautiful (I know, very humble)

Overview/History

One of the two groups (along with Twice) of at the forefront of the “cute” concept for the third generation of Kpop, GFriend is one of the best success stories for a group from a small agency (linked to article here). The name GFriend, according to the agency’s CEO, is supposed to be interpreted in two ways, the image of an “ideal girlfriend”, and the image of a “good friend”. They distinguished themselves in the crowded field with their “powerful innocence” concept, marked by powerful and synchronized choreography to go along with the innocence theme in their music, often accompanied by electric guitars and power chords. The holder of the most music show wins a single year ever for a girl group, GFriend had a meteoric rise to the top, and have stayed there ever since. GFriend debuted on January 15, 2015, with the release of their first EP “Season of Glass” with the lead single “Glass Bead”. Their debut was moderately successful, with the album debuting at number 12 on the Gaon’s weekly chart and the song’s MV ranked among the top 10 “Most Watched Kpop Music Videos in January 2015” on YouTube. The song also eventually cracked 1M digital downloads for the year, a very unusual achievement for a new group from a small agency.

However, it was not until the release of their second EP, “Flower Bud”, on July 23, 2015, that their meteoric rise to the top began. The EP contained the lead single “Me Gustas Tu”, which became a mega-hit with over 100 million streams for the year and has recorded more than 2.5 million digital downloads. This rising popularity was greatly helped by their now famous/infamous “slippery stage performance”, where a fan-cam captured the group performing “Me Gustas Tu” on a very slippery (due to rain) stage. The members were filmed continuing and finishing the performance despite continuously slipping and falling multiple times. ( IT’S A PLOY TO GET MORE STREET CRED!). The video went viral and the group was praised for their professionalism, especially Yuju, who fell multiple times and suffered a twisted finger as a result. Bolstered by this, “Me Gustas Tu” went on to become the longest charting song on the Melon Chart for an idol group with 63 weeks (a record since broken by multiple groups).

GFriend then truly took off with the release of their third EP, “Snowflake”, on January 25, 2016, with the title track “Rough”, which completes the school-themed trilogy of songs for them. The track earned GFriend their first show win, and would go on to win 15 shows, including triple crowns on M Countdown, Inkigayo, Music Bank, and The Show. The 15 show wins places the song second for number of show wins by a song of a girl group, behind only Apink’s LUV. The song also placed first on the Gaon’s First Half of 2016 Chart and gave GFriend their first (and still only) perfect all-kills (PAK), an achievement where a song places first on the Real-Time, Daily, and Weekly charts for all 9 of Korea’s major music charts. GFriend followed up their successful first half with the release of their first ever album, “LOL”, on July 11, 2016, with the title track, “Navillera”. Riding on the group’s exploding popularity, the track recorded 14 show wins, giving GFriend 29 music show wins for the year, setting the record for most show wins in a year by a girl group (a record since broken by Twice). At the year’s end, “Rough” became GFriend’s second song to reach 100 million and was the most downloaded song in Korea according to the Gaon Chart’s 2016 Year-End Download Chart. “Navillera”, though not quite as successful, became yet another song of theirs to crack the 1 million digital downloads mark.

2017 was not quite as successful for the 6 girls from Source Music. They began the year with the release of their fourth, EP, “The Awakening”, on January 25th, 2017, with the title track “Fingertip”. Although the EP set their new high for preorders with 100,000 copies and debuted at number 5 on Billboard’s Worldwide Album Chart, “Fingertip” did not do as well as their previous title tracks, picking up only 2 show wins and failing to crack the 1 million digital downloads mark. Similarly, their fifth EP, “Parallel”, released on August 1st with the title track “Love Whisper”, and their repacked album, “Rainbow, released on in September with the title track “Summer Rain”, did not do as well as the standards they set in 2016. Despite both picking up a couple of show wins, neither song cracked the Gaon’s Chart End-of-Year Top 100 Downloads Chart nor cracked the 1 million digital downloads mark.

However, GFriend quickly bounced back in 2018. They started the year with their first solo concert since debut, and tickets for the concert quickly sold out. Their sixth EP, “Time for the Moon Night”, released on April 30th, 2018 with the same-name title track, quickly took the top spot on the iTunes chart for 10 different countries as well as the top sport on Gaon’s Album Download chart. “Time for the Moon Night” also swept the music shows, winning at least one from each show for a total of 10 wins, the most wins for a GFriend song since their golden 2016. GFriend followed up with their debut Japan album, the compilation album “GFriend 1st Best”, released on May 23rd. The album peaked at number 10 on Japan’s Oricon weekly album chart. They then continued their Japan’s march with their first Japanese single album, “Memoria /夜 (Time for the Moon Night)”, released in October 10th, 2018, which debuted at number 6 on the Oricon weekly singles chart.

GFriend continued to surge forward into 2019. On January 14th, 2019, they released their second studio album, “Time for Us”, which became their best-selling Korean album with more than 86,000 copies sold so far. They made their latest comeback with the release of their eighth EP, “Fever Season” on July 1, 2019, with the title track “Fever”.
GFriend might have gotten the break (the viral rain performance) through luck, but it is through their perseverance and very bright personalities (along with the great discography of course) that have cemented their place as one of the top girl groups of the 3rd gen of K-pop. I can’t wait to see their sounds evolved as they get older.