APink (A Pink)

STAGE NAME		BIRTH NAME		DATE OF BIRTH	POSITIONS
ROMANIZED	HANGUL	ROMANIZED	HANGUL
Chorong	초롱	Park Cho Rong	박초롱	March 3, 1991 (age 21)	Leader, Main Rapper, Vocalist
Bomi	보미	Yoon Bo Mi	윤보미	August 13, 1993 (age 18)	Main Dancer, Lead Vocalist, Rapper
Eunji	은지	Jung Eun Ji	정은지	August 18, 1993 (age 18)	Main Vocalist
Naeun	나은	Son Na Eun	손나은	February 10, 1994 (age 18)	Visual, Lead Dancer, Lead Rapper, Vocalist
Yookyung	유경	Hong Yoo Kyung	홍유경	September 22, 1994 (age 17)	Vocalist , Rapper
Namjoo	남주	Kim Nam Joo	김남주	April 15, 1995 (age 17)	Lead Vocalist
Hayoung	하영	Oh Ha Young	오하영	July 19, 1996 (age 15)	Maknae, Vocalist

A Pink (Korean: 에이핑크) is a seven-member South Korean girl group under A Cube Entertainment formed in 2011. The group consists of Park Chorong, Yoon Bomi, Jung Eunji, Son Naeun, Hong Yookyung, Kim Namjoo and Oh Hayoung.

The group has released two Korean mini-albums and one full album. They debuted on April 21, 2011, on M! Countdown with the EP Seven Springs of A Pink. A Pink were awarded the Best New Female Artist award at the 2011 Mnet Asian Music Awards.

Pre-Debut

History

The first trainee to be revealed as a member of Cube Entertainment’s new girl group was Son Naeun who was featured in labelmate boy group Beast’s “Soom”, “Beautiful” and “I Like You The Best” music videos in late 2010. The second member revealed was the group’s leader, Park Chorong, who was shown at the end of Beast’s “Shock” Japanese music video. It was later revealed that the new girl group would be managed by a sub-division of Cube Entertainment known as A Cube Entertainment. On February 21, A Cube Entertainment set up an official Twitter account and revealed Oh Hayoung as the third member of A Pink. Jung Eunji was the fourth member revealed through A Cube’s Twitter through a video of her singing a rendition of ’s ”I Love You I Do”. Hong Yookyung was similarly revealed through an online video where she was playing the piano. Yoon Bomi and Kim Namjoo were the last members to be revealed through Twitter.

Prior to the group’s debut, the documentary A Pink News aired on the Korean cable channel TrendE. The show chronicled the debut process of the members of A Pink. The pilot episode of A Pink News was aired on March 11, 2011. Each episode was featured a different celebrity guest as its anchorman. Among the celebrity guests of the show were G.NA, Mario, MBLAQ’s Seung Ho and G.O, Beast, 4minute, 2AM’s Jinwoon,Infinite (band)’s Sunggyu and Sungjong, and Secret’s Sunhwa and Hyosung.

2011: Debut - Seven Springs of A Pink & Snow Pink

On April 13, the music video teaser for A Pink’s debut album, Seven Springs of A Pink, was released. The theme of the teaser was the spring season and the idea of innocent beauty. A Pink released the EP “Seven Springs of A Pink” and the music video for their lead single, “I Don’t Know”, on 19 April 2011. The album featured five songs, including “It Girl” and “Wishlist”. The music video for “I Don’t Know” featured Beast’s Gi Kwang.

A Pink made their debut stage performance of “I Don’t Know” on M.net M! Countdown on April 21 to further promote their album. During A Pink’s first official fanmeet, it was revealed that their official fan club name is ‘Pink Panda’, a play on the name of the group and the Korean word for ‘fan’ (팬, paen).

Following their promotions for “I Don’t Know”, the group promoted “It Girl” on the weekly music shows. A Pink also recorded the song “Please Let us Love” (Korean: 우리 그냥 사랑하게 해주세요;Uri Geunyang Saranghage Haejuseyo) for the popular SBS drama Protect the Boss, starring JYJ’s Jaejoong and Choi Kang Hee. The soundtrack was released in September 2011.

In November 2011, A Pink began recording a new reality television show called Birth of a Family with boy band Infinite. The show followed the journey of the two idol groups in taking care of abandoned and mistreated animals over the course of 8 weeks. The first episode aired on November 12.

A Pink released their second mini-album, Snow Pink, on November 22, 2011, featuring the lead single “My My”.The album featured five tracks, including “Yeah” and “Prince”. The music video teaser for “My My” was released on November 21, 2011.Promotions for “My My” began on November 25, 2011, on Music Bank. The lead single “My My” was particularly noted for having a sound reminiscent of girl groups of the early 2000s, such as S.E.S and FinKL.

During their promotions for “My My”, the group opened up a one-day idol tea cafe, serving visiting fans to raise profits for charity and preparing food and drinks themselves. The members also auctioned off some of their personal items for charity.

In November 29, A Pink were awarded the Best New Female Artist award at the 2011 Mnet Asian Music Awards, while labelmate Huh Gak went on to win the Best New Male Artist award.

On December 26, 2011 A Pink released a song with Beast called Skinny Baby and the song was a collaboration for the school uniform brand Skool Looks. The song itself showcases the strengths of both groups and has an addictive melody and rhythm. The track was written for them by Kim Taewan and Yoon Sangjo.

2012: Comeback

On January 5, 2012 A Pink won their very first music show award on M! Countdown for “My My”.

On March 13, 2012, A Pink’s Eunji and Beast’s Yoseob released the music video for their duet song “Love Day”. The single for it, “‘A CUBE’ For Season # Green”, was released the next day.Eunji and Yoseob performed the song on the April 7th episode of MBC Show! Music Core.

On March 21, 2012, A Pink made their Canadian debut at the Kool Haus in Toronto. They performed to about 1,000-1,600 fans.

On April 19, 2012, A Pink released a very special single as a gift for their fans to celebrate their one year anniversary. The girls have returned to their fans with a track titled “April 19th“, the date of their debut one year ago. A Pink believes that they wouldn’t be where they are now if not for the love and support of their loyal fans. This is a way for them to give back to the fans and this new ballad is also a perfect melody for the Spring season. The track was composed by Kim Jin Hwan, and the lyrics were personally penned by A Pink leader Park Chorong. The fresh pop-ballad highlights the girls’ developed vocal talent, and the modernized harmony and dynamic chorus further adds charm to the song.

A Pink made their comeback with their first official album “Une Annee” on May 9th. The album contained 9 songs; “Une Annee”, an intro song narrated by G.NA, “Hush”, the title song, “고양이” (Cat), “4월 19일” (April 19th), “Bubibu”, “Step”, “I Got You”, “하늘 높이” (Up In The Sky, com a participação de Yong Jun-hyung, do Beast, que foi creditado como Joker) e “Boy”.