SHINee’s TAEMIN racks up six wins already in 2022!

SHINee’s TAEMIN racks up six wins already in 2022!

By iBabe

Taemin in “WANT” a masterpiece of sensuality to all senses

SHINee, a 2nd generation (2000–2009) K-Pop five-member boy-group debuted in May 2008 as an experiment by SM Entertainment. During their debut, SHINee became the first rookie group to win all the “Rookie of the Year” awards for 2008, making SHINee the first “Grand Slam” rookies!

Group members are: Leader/lead vocalist ~ Lee Jinki (or stage name ONEW); Main vocalist ~ Kim Jonghyun (or JONGHYUN); Vocalist & Rapper ~ Kim Kibum (or known as KEY); Main Rapper & Vocalist ~ Choi Minho (or MINHO) and Lee Taemin (or TAEMIN) ~ Main Dancer & Vocalist. Sadly, after the untimely death of member Jonghyun in December 2017. SHINee became a four-member group. However, SHINee as well as their fandom called SHAWOLS still include Jonghyun as part of SHINee today. As described by Wikipedia, SHINee’s musical impact in South Korea earned them numerous accolades and the title “Princes of K-pop”. SHINee’s debut song “Replay” is one of my favourite songs along with “Don’t Call Me”, being their most recent. Noteworthy is SHINee’s outstanding live stage performances! They are regarded as one of the best groups in K-pop for their highly synchronised and complex choreography. As a result, they received the “Best Dance Performance Award” at the MAMA (Mnet Asian Music Awards) three times in a row for songs: “Sherlock, Clue + Note”; “Dream Girl” and “View”. Further, SHINee’s style of music or genre is contemporary R&B. However, again they are known for their experimental sound that includes other genres, such as, funk rock, hip hop and EDM.

With the brief synopsis of SHINee over we can now delve into the solo career of SHINee’s youngest member ~ TAEMIN whom debuted at age 14 with SHINee on May 25, 2008. Six years later, Taemin was the first member of SHINee to launch his solo career on August 18, 2014. Taemin would also debut in a new K-pop “supergroup”SuperM on October 4, 2019. Formed by SM Entertainment and Capitol Music Group. The group has seven popular K-pop idols from four SM groups: Taemin from SHINee, Baekhyun and Kai from EXO, Taeyong and Mark from NCT127, and Ten and Lucas from WayV. SuperM’s self-titled debut EP entered the Billboard 200 at number one, making SuperM the first Asian artist in history to top the US album chart with a debut release.

SuperM filmed “Jopping” (title track from self-titled debut EP) in the UAE desert and Dubai’s cityscape.

Taemin’s solo debut song DANGER was released as a music video earlier on August 16. The album “ACE” was released later on the 18th. It dropped with 6 songs ~ Ace, Danger, Experience, Pretty Boy, Wicked and Play Me. And peaked at number one on South Korea’s Gaon Album Chart.

Taemin would over the span of 7 years as a solo artist produce 7 albums, including the iconic 2017 “MOVE” – The 2nd Album, with the title track of the same name and with its unique choreography would spark the trend dubbed, “Move Disease”. The album debuted at number two on the Gaon Album Chart and number three on the Billboard World Albums Chart.

A pictorial of most of TAEMIN’s albums (from debut mini-album ACE to last year’s mini-album ADVICE)

Taemin’s other albums (including Japanese albums) are:

• 2016 “PRESS IT” (The 1st Full Album);
• 2016 “Sayonara Hitori” (The 1st Japanese Mini Album)
• 2017 “Flame of Love” (The 2nd Japanese Mini Album)
• 2017 “MOVE-ing” (The 2nd Album Repackage);
• 2018 “TAEMIN” (The 1st Japanese Full Album);
• 2019 “WANT” (The 2nd Mini Album);
• 2019 “FAMOUS” (The 3rd Japanese Mini Album)
• 2020 “Never Gonna Dance Again – Act 1” and “Never Gonna Dance Again – Act 2” (Both The 3rd Full Album); and
• 2021 “ADVICE” (The 3rd Mini Album)

Taemin’s solo works above stand out as notably Taemin in essence. All Taemin’s songs tell a story and if there is a music video a production! Most of Taemin’s title tracks have a music video, such as, “MOVE” along with performance videos. In addition, Taemin usually performs the song in various live music shows. Again adding to the story of the song with perfected vocals and choreography along with matching attire!

Now to the main purpose of this article is to address Taemin’s success in 2022 while he is on hiatus as of the end of May in 2021. Taemin had been serving as part of his mandatory military service in the military band. Earlier this year on January 14, Taemin was transferred to serve the remaining time of his mandatory military service in social services due to worsening effects of depression and anxiety. It was noted that Taemin had previously suffered from depression and panic disorder before entering military service but obviously these details were kept private, until now. Immediately after this news broke, there was an outpouring of love and support from Taemin’s fans on several social media platforms, including, Twitter and Instagram.

In fact, Taemin’s hiatus, has stimulated global fans to support Taemin’s musical feats and thus so far Taemin has racked up six wins already in 2022.

• Spinditty (an online site) created by music buffs announced last week their selected “Top 10 K-Pop Male Solo Artists” of 2022, with ‘innovative’ Taemin snatching number one spot! Being innovative is unquestionably Taemin’s trademark as the article discussed that Taemin ~ “challenges himself to try new things, rather than simply repeating sounds that everyone has already used a million times”.
• Taemin’s most recent first place win was with the iconic ‘WANT’ album. Global fans voted WANT as the best album from February 2019, on the global fandom social networking platform ‘Whosfan’. The album charted on ‘Hanteo Chart’ back in February 2019. Taemin received overwhelming support with the final winning result being 37.40%.

• Earlier in February, Taemin had also won first place on ‘Whosfan’, with his 1st Full Album - ‘PRESS IT’. Fans voted PRESS IT to number one spot as the best album to come from February 2016. The album had charted on ‘Hanteo Chart’ back in February 2016. This album was described in the article on ‘Whosfan’ as the ‘Media Bible’, due to Taemin’s vocals and performance.

• The next two top-of-the-list wins for Taemin were announced by “Reddit K-Pop Awards” (an online music awards site that can be found as “redditkpop” on Twitter) and posted on Twitter. Taemin won both ‘Best Male Soloist 2021’ and ‘Best Choreography 2021 – Solo with Advice’.

• The sixth first place win for Taemin was earlier in the year with fans voting for Taemin to, ‘Be My Valentine’, on the global fandom social networking platform ‘FANTOO’. Taemin received great support from his fans with a total of 46.14%. Fans were awarded with a fan-made AD that would be released just before and after Mnet’s ‘M Countdown’ live broadcast from the 10th, and would also be released on a large outdoor billboard in Yeouido Seoul Marina for the month of February.

The AD at the Marina:

https://twitter.com/minmin99895865/status/1493117640390307840/video/1

Congratulations Taemin for your successes so far this year!