“‘Disbandment’ doesn‘t exist in our dictionary!”

GOT7 and GFriend, representative third-generation K-pop groups, are returning to their fans as a complete group after many twists and turns. After each of their exclusive contracts with their former agencies expired, they went their separate ways. With a single-minded determination to ‘maintain the group’, they have finally caught everyone’s attention by releasing a new album after a long period of preparation.

GFriend will be releasing a special album, ‘Season of Memories’, on the 13th to celebrate their 10th debut anniversary. It will be the first time in four years that all six members will sing together since their exclusive contracts with Source Music ended in 2021. They will also be holding a solo concert for three days from the 17th to the 19th at the Olympic Hall in Olympic Park, Songpa-gu, Seoul.

Ahead of their full-fledged group activities, they pre-released the title song ‘In Our Tender Season’ from their new album on the 6th, building up excitement. They also performed the title song on stage in advance at the 39th Golden Disc Awards the day before. The sight of them standing on the same stage for the first time in four years caught the attention of K-pop fans in and outside of Korea, and the video surpassed 1 million views in just one day on YouTube and ranked at the top of the ‘Most Popular Videos’ on the 8th.

The members actively prepared for the album by coming up with ideas for the new song even while each of them had a tight schedule, with SinB, Umji, and Eunha recently being part of the group B.B. Here, staff members who have worked together for a long time at their former agency, Source Music, have joined forces to complete the new album.

On the 8th, GFriend said through Source Music, “We made the new song just for Buddies (fandom name). Our narrative is melted throughout the lyrics.”

GOT7, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, will release a new mini-album, ‘Winter Heptagon’, on the 20th and resume full group activities after 3 years. Their last full group album was ‘GOT7’ in May 2022.

They have recently joined hands with Kakao Entertainment to lay a new foundation for group activities and are also discussing holding a concert next month. Even though all seven members are from different agencies and face practical constraints on full group activities, the members have been steadily discussing a new album with the firm will to “work together.”

Leader JB is playing a central role. The official SNS account that he operated from debut until 2021 in consultation with his former agency JYP Entertainment has recently been reopened. JYP helped the members smoothly carry out group activities by transferring the trademark rights to the members in 2022.


Reporter Yoo Ji-hye yjh0304@donga.com