After 18 September 2020 when the Mnet survival competition show “I-LAND” ended, the fans started to eagerly wait for the new K-pop boy group under BELIFT LAB, ENHYPEN. This group was created by producer Bang Si-Hyuk who created the worldwide famous BTS. After the success of BTS that captured millions of fans, South Korean entertainment companies have benchmarked Big Hit to create the next K-pop world star. And as a result, ENHYPEN was created.
During the final episode of I-Land, it was announced that the resulting group would be called “ENHYPEN”. Just like the way hyphens connect different words to make new meanings, the aim is for ENHYPEN to come together to connect, discover, and grow together to create a new act.
Fans of ENHYPEN are known as “ENGENE”. It means that fans are the engine that drives ENHYPEN’s growth and development. ENHYPEN also shares a "GENE" with their fans to connect, discover, and develop with one another. But even with all of the history and followers behind them, they are just getting started on their journey to take over the world with their music.
While other K-pop bands usually come together after years of training and tons of tests behind closed doors to see who has what it really takes to make it in the K-pop industry, ENHYPEN's journey was available to the public thanks to I-LAND. Fans have played a central role for ENHYPEN, from its creation to debut. Viewers from more than 180 countries voted for their favorite members in "I-Land". That’s why they are called the global fan-made group.
Formed from the South Korean music themed survival competition show, all the 23 trainees battled it out over the course of three months apart from home, family, and friends to be a part of the final lineup. In the end, seven members emerged victoriously. The members, Heesung, Jay, Sunghoon, Jake, Sunoo, Jungwon and Niki ultimately formed the ENHYPEN today.
With 2.8 million followers on TikTok, 2 million followers on Instagram, being the fastest K-pop Act to hit 100K followers on Twitter (less than 20 minutes), and nearly 1 million subscribers on YouTube making them the second most subscribed rookie group of 2020, it might be surprising you to hear that the band has only debuted this week on November 30 with the song ‘Given-Taken’ from the debut album ‘BORDER: DAY ONE’.
ENHYPEN’s debut album “Border: Day One” was announced on October 28 through Weverse, a social media fan platform created by Big Hit Entertainment. It is a combination of dark and energetic tracks filled album which contains stories that express the complicated emotions the members felt as trainees who are becoming an idol group. Through their performance, they expressed connection, discovery, and the worries one faces during the process of growth. The title track “Given-Taken” refers to the question of whether the members were “given” their debut or whether they have “taken” it themselves.
It’s surely obvious that they took it themselves as they already won the hearts of millions of fans. After the final episode of “I-Land”, producer Bang Si-Hyuk called and told the rookie group that, ‘in K-pop, there are no artists without fans, and they should never forget that it’s the love from their fans around the world that brought them here’ to encourage them even more. The maknae (youngest) member Ni-ki said, “He (producer Bang Si-Hyuk) told us to become happy musicians and that’s what we are trying to do now.”
The mini-album got six tracks and it also comes with an intro and an outro. The names of the 6-tracks are - ‘Intro: Walk the Line, ‘Given-Taken’, ‘Let Me In (20 CUBE), ’10 Months’, ‘Flicker’, and ‘Outro: Cross the Line’. The album is available in two versions, 'Dusk' and 'Dawn'. The latter appears to feature light and soft elements with its dreamy baby-blue clearway while Dusk seems to contain darker, vampire vibes. Fans have also speculated that the two sides may represent the different facets of ENHYPEN and their versatility.
The album which contains some photobooks, CDs, bookmarks, postcards, photocards, polaroids, and posters, notably surpassed 300,000 stock pre-orders just three weeks after pre-orders opened, proving the group’s worldwide support. Impressively, ENHYPEN managed to rack up 150,000 of those stock pre-orders in just two days. The number of stock pre-orders is the amount of album stock that is produced prior to an album’s release. This number is the estimated demand calculated using various factors, including how many albums were pre-ordered by fans.
According to Hanteo Chart (Hanteo Chart is Korea's only music chart that sums up the album and music sales in real-time), “Border: Day One” ranked No. 1 on the daily album chart for Nov. 30 with 229,991 copies sold followed by the other hits, EXO member Kai’s debut solo album “Kai” with 167,249 copies, GOT7’s new album “Breath of Love: Last Piece” with 127,336 copies and NCT’s “NCT 2020 Resonance Pt. 2” Arrival Version with 124,554 copies, all released on the same day.
On iTunes, “Border: Day One” became No. 1 in Japan and Lithuania, No. 2 in Brunei, Romania, and Russia, and No. 3 in countries and regions including the US, Philippines, Hong Kong, India, Brazil, and Indonesia. They were the fastest Rookie Group of 2020 to rank #1 on Idol Champ’s Daily Chart, ranked #4 on Most Mentioned 2020 Rookie Group with 676,471 mentions in just 2 days of tracking, and also ranked #1 on KPOP NEXT BIG SOUND Emerging Artists Weekly Chart with 1,904,982 social metrics.
ENHYPEN is now going to participate in a year-end live concert organized by Big Hit labels to perform with other big artists such as BTS, TXT, GFRIEND, SEVENTEEN, and NU'EST. The concert will be broadcast through Weverse on December 31. So, hurry up, get to know them, and support these happy musicians from your heart.
Rumaiysa M Rahman is a 9th grader at Viqarunnisa Noon School and College, Dhaka