Meet IVE: another of South Korea’s rising girl groups
By Renee Ho and Hailey Sun
An up-and-coming K-pop girl group by the name of IVE just made their debut in 2021 and has already been a huge influence in the K-pop industry. The group consists of six members: Yujin, Gaeul, Rei, Wonyoung, Liz, and Leeseo. They currently have released three single albums; Eleven, Love Dive and After like, and recently made their debut on the Japanese stage as well.
IVE is led by member Yujin, a dancer and vocalist. All other members are vocalists as well, with the exceptions of Gaeul—a dancer and rapper—and Rei, who is also a rapper. The group’s name ‘IVE’ is the short form of the phrase ‘I have’, referring to the members’ confidence in their musical performance abilities and skills.
IVE was highly anticipated by netizens as two members Wonyoung and Yujin were previously in a popular survival show group called IZ*ONE, which was disbanded after two years much to the disappointment of fans. The two members—who were some of IZ*ONE's more favoured members—drastically brought up expectations for IVE’s debut.
In spite of IVE having been formed by a mere ‘mid-level’ entertainment company, the six-member girl group had an extremely successful debut, supported by the fans brought from Wonyoung and Yujin’s previous ventures. Their debut song, ‘Eleven’—a synth dance-pop song expressing the member’s romantic desires—had its Youtube music video surpass ten million views just under twenty four hours after the song was released; the video received the highest number of views out of all 2021 debut K-pop videos. IVE also became the fastest girl group to achieve their first award at only a week post-debut, surpassing the previous record of nine days held by ITZY—another popular K-pop girl group. Additionally, IVE received 13 music-related awards over the promotion period of the debut song ‘Eleven’—an impressive feat!
As for their latest endeavours, IVE recently released their third album ‘After Like’ in August, sampled from the iconic song ‘I Will Survive’ by Gloria Gaynor. The catchy song has captured all the viewer’s hearts through its exquisite vocals, eye-catching original choreography, and vibrant and colourful music video as an accompaniment. Unique single-colour themes were predominant throughout the song—as seen through the rainbow theme—and symbolized the different feelings when encountering the feeling of “like”. The climax of the song portrays the thrilling yet unnerving feeling when encountering different stages of “like”. IVE effortlessly depicts the mixed feelings of exhilaration, giddiness, and joy, while exploring the concepts of a potential budding romance.
‘After Like’ received an impressive response from the public. Its music video exceeded 120 million views on YouTube; the song also became the longest-running track on the top 10 weekly charts of Melon—a major streaming platform in Korea, maintained a spot on the Billboard Global 200 chart for eight consecutive weeks since its release, and won rookie group of the year award—an award for the most popular and trending rookie K-pop groups—in the Seoul Music Awards.
Although IVE debuted only ten months ago, it is undeniable that the group is already dominating the K-pop industry thanks to the phenomenal success of ‘After Like’ and their previous hits.