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Lee Hyori

Revision as of 01:32, 21 June 2010 by Plisskin (talk | contribs)
Lee Hyori promoting H-Logic (2010)

Lee Hyori (이효리, also romanized as E Hyo Ri / Hyolee / Hyo Lee) is a Korean pop singer, MC, CM model and actress. She made her debut as the leader and sub vocalist of the girl group Fin.K.L and successfully debuted as a solo artist with her album STYLISH...E hyOlee after Fin.K.L disbanded. Currently she is one of the highest paid female singers in South Korea.

Profile

  • Name: Lee Hyori (이효리)
  • Birthday: May 10, 1979
  • Birthplace: Cheongwon, Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea
  • Blood Type: A
  • Height: 167cm
  • Weight: 49kg
  • Siblings: One brother, two sisters
  • School: Kookmin University
  • Religion: Christian
  • Childhood Dream: Police officer
  • Hobbies: Drawing, acting
  • Favorite Part of Her Body: Her long, straight hair
  • Ideal Guy: Someone who leaves a good first impression, only love her, and can enjoy company like a friend
  • Customs: Laughs often, low temper
  • Complex: Long black hair, cute eyes
  • Most Precious Thing: Family
  • First Love Elementary school; there was a boy who did everything so well she envied him
  • Favorite Food: Anything, especially crackers covered with chocolate
  • Favorite Color: White
  • Favorite Artists: Mariah Carey, Brandy
  • Favorite Songs: Mostly ballad and R&B

Information

Lee Hyori promoting STYLISH...E hyOlee (2003)

Debut

Lee Hyori began her singing career as the leader and sub vocalist of the Korean girl group Fin.K.L. She become a member of the group in January 1998 after being scouted just before their debut. Fin.K.L. debuted officially on May 22, 1998 with the single "Blue Rain". After releasing more songs, the group gained much popularity and Fin K.L. became one of the most popular and successful Korean girl groups of all-time, only rivaling with the other popular girl group at that moment, S.E.S..

In 2003, one year after Fin K.L.'s fourth and last album release I'll be loving you forever, Lee Hyori released her debut solo album, STYLISH...E hyOlee. Thanks to this album she won multiple awards at the most prestigious Korean music award festivals including three of the four most prestigious Daesangs (Artist of the Year). Her debut album sold over 150,000 copies and her popularity raised quickly; even the Korean Media nicknamed 2003 as "The Year of Hyori".

Lee Hyori debuted as actress in 2005 in the drama Three-Leaf Clover with the main role, however the ratings for the drama were continually low, and it ended after 16 episodes.

Lee Hyori promoting Dark Angel (2006)

2nd Studio Album, Plagiarism Scandal

One year later, in 2006, Lee released her second album Dark Angel. The first song chosen to promote the album was "Get Ya", which featured a hard and suggestive choreography, although she could only perform the song a few times before the composer of Britney Spears' "Do Somethin'" accused the song of plagiarism. Although Lee didn't participated in its creation, the media attention increased and it was decided to stop all the promotions of the single. After a short break she started promoting the second single from the album, "Shall We Dance", but due all the negative attention from the plagiarism issue, neither the single or the album had much success. All this forced Lee to stop all the promotions. Time later, a third song from the album, "Straight Up", was released as a final single but it was not promoted by Lee Hyori.

At the end of 2006, it was revealed that Lee signed a three-year contract with M-Net Entertainment for ₩2.2 billion (nearly US$2 million), becoming the highest paid female singer in South Korea.

In 2007 Lee landed the main role in the four episode mini-drama Perhaps Love, although it became banned in Korea because of inappropriate product placement and the overuse of Lee's songs as part of the soundtrack. The Korean Broadcasting Committee ruled that the drama can never be aired in South Korea again.

In the same year, Lee released her digital single "Toc Toc Toc", which was the soundtrack to the drama Perhaps Love. She had her comeback stage on SBS Inkigayo on February 25, 2007, where she performed the three main tracks from the single. The digital single was released two days later in a physical single limited to 30,000 copies, titled "If in Love Like Them". It contained the same songs as the digital single with the addition of a new version of "Toc Toc Toc". The single sold nearly 28,000 copies, becoming the best selling single of the month.

Lee Hyori promoting It's Hyorish (2009)

3rd Studio Album, U-Go-Girl

In June 2008, Lee become part of the cast of the television show Family Outing and her third album, It's Hyorish, was released on July 16, 2008, two years after her previous album. The song "U-Go-Girl" was used as the first lead song, which topped the charts on various online and offline charts, including music shows.

In November 2009, her billionaire contract with M-Net Entertainment ended and she signed a new contract with Gil Entertainment.

In January 2010, it was announced she would not participate in the second season of Family Outing (neither the rest of the first season cast), and it was also announced her comeback to the music scene with her fourth album, expected in February. In the same month, Lee became the first Asian model chosen by Adidas for the "Adidas Originals 2010 Global" campaign for the women's line, which also features American singer Ciara.

4th Studio Album, Second Plagiarism Scandal

Lee confirmed on her official fan café that she finished recording for her 4th album stating "Everyone, finally after 8 months recording has finished. Now its time for me to start again—practice, music video, and first live performance. I’ll have to work hard." A representative from Mnet revealed "We kept pushing the come back date so we can continue recording. The results are here and we finished recording on the 1st". The title of Lee’s fourth album was revealed to be H-Logic and it was slated for an April 2010 release. She released the song and music video for "Geune" on April 1, 2010 as the first single however the track was not the lead single for the album; Mnet Media announced "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" as the title track. H-Logic was delayed to be released on April 13, 2010 due to the tragic South Korean ROKS Cheonan (PCC-772) naval ship tragedy, and the album was leaked on April 11, 2010--Mnet Media released the album a day earlier than planned to combat the leak. The music video for "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" was released on April 13, 2010 and H-Logic was released the same day.

Lee Hyori endorsing Soju (2009)

Lee’s promotional performances for the album began on April 16, 2010 at M! Countdown; she performed "I’m Back", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", and "Want Me Back". The singer later won the #1 spot on M! Countdown. Mnet Media also announced plans for Lee to release a repackage in June 2010 and to continue promotional activity for her fourth album until July 2010. However on April 21, 2010 Canadian blogger Zack Taylor reported on his blog Lee’s song "Bring It Back" plagiarized indie Canadian pop group Cookie Couture’s song "Boy Bring It Back". Through their official MySpace the group released an official statement on April 23, 2010 stating their lawyers were working on the case. Five other songs from Lee’s album being "I’m Back", "Feel The Same", "Geune", "How Did We Get", and "MEMORY" were also accused of plagiarism which were composed by Bahnus. Mnet Media released a statement on April 26, 2010 stating the songs were demo’s and guide tracks, much like Girls' Generation’s song "Run Devil Run" was previously sung by American singer Kesha as a guide song. For "Geune" a representative stated there was no need to receive copyright approval due to the original song not having a title and the author was anonymous. However on June 21, 2010 Lee acknowledged on her official fan café that their is plagiarism on H-Logic.

Lee stated "It looks like its been a while since I wrote an entry here. After the release of my 4th album, many interrogations arose, it was frustrating for me and you must have been curious about these issues at some point. I’ve been asking myself whether I should tell you all of it or not, there were things to take into consideration, and after I figured it out, time has passed… and it took me some time to talk to you. It must have been frustrating for you as well, I’m truly sorry about that…When I was making the album, in the beginning, I received songs from Bahnus. When we released it, plagiarism issues were raised, there was something wrong. I , too, believed everything he told me, there was no way we could know. The company first received the songs from him, under his name, and we didn’t suspect anything. But we kept moving forward, and words risen again, suspicion, artists saying that he wasn’t the original composer of the songs, that he stole them and claimed these were his.

Finding the original producers of the songs was hard and it took some time to make sure everything we heard was the truth. We investigated him and we found out that the songs were not his. We know for sure that 2 songs out of the 6 songs that we recorded are not his and we already contacted the original composers. For the remaining songs we couldn’t find the original creators, but the company is still looking into it and will take care of this matter. We will do what we have to and put that behind us and we will take moral responsibility. I wanted to release the album soon, it took me a long time to make it as I wanted to, and I also wanted to promote it for a long period until these issues are solved, but I can’t do that anymore.

The truth is that for these problems to be solved, a long time is needed. These matters take time to be put behind. It’s unfortunate but it appears that it will be impossible for me to lead successful album activities for now. I’m truly sorry for you who expected more from me and waited for something else… I’ve always been passionate when recording songs for my albums, although I went through a lot and experienced headaches. My heart aches, because I couldn’t promise you something perfect, I’ve been constantly blaming myself. But instead of being helpless, I feel that it is my responsibility to step up and to take care of this. It’s my responsibility to handle anything I do well. For putting you all through this with me, I apologize, once again to all of you. I want to always show you the best of me. I’ll be working even harder to show you the best of me. I will show you more, the best."

Due to the plagiarism in H-Logic, Lee’s promotional activity for the album ceased and the plans to release a repackage is shelved.

Discography

Albums

Single

Digital Singles

DVDs

Collaborations / Others

Works

Lee Hyori modeling for InStyle Korea (2004)
Lee Hyori promoting the drama Three-Leaf Clover (2005)
Lee Hyori modeling for P&G Vidal Sassoon (2007)

Television

Dramas

Endorsements / Commercials

Photobooks

HYOLEE Fascinated Scenes from Hawaii & Italy

  • [2004.07.12] HYOLEE Fascinated Scenes from Hawaii & Italy

Awards

  • [2002] KBS Entertainment Awards "Best Newcomer MC"
  • [2003] KBS Music Awards "Daesang"
  • [2003] SBS Music Awards "Daesang"
  • [2003] Seoul Music Awards "Daesang"
  • [2003] MBC 10 Best Singers Song Festival "10 Best Singers Award"
  • [2003] Mnet Music Video Festival "Best Music Video"
  • [2003] 18th Golden Disk Awards "Daesang"
  • [2003] KMTV Korean Music Awards "Singer of the Year", "KMTV Daesang"
  • [2003] MBC Entertainment Awards "Best Female Singer", "Best Dressed Woman"
  • [2003] Republic of Korea Video Awards "Best Female Singer Star"
  • [2007] Republic of Korean Broadcast and Advertising Festival "Best Female Model"
  • [2007] 1st Mnet 20's Choice "Women Best Style"
  • [2008] 2nd Mnet 20's Choice "Hot Style Icon", "Hot Musical Performance"
  • [2008] Mnet KM Music Festival "Best Dance Song", "Best Female Singer"
  • [2009] 3rd Mnet 20's Choice "Hot Body", "Hot Multi-Tainer", "Hot Style Icon"
  • [2009] SBS Entertainment Awards "Popularity Award", "Daesang" (with Yu Jae Suk)

External Links

v • d • e
Lee Hyori
Songs · Images · Fin.K.L
Albums Lee Hyori - BLACK promo.jpg
Singles
Digital Singles
Official Cafe
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