In October 2019, a super group was formed from the South Korean entertainment company SM in a partnership with Capitol Music Group from the US. The group consisted of seven members, all from various other groups from within SM entertainment. Taemin of Shinee, Baekhyun and Kai of EXO, Taeyong and Mark of NCT, and Ten and Lucas of WayV. The seven members came together to form ‘the avengers of kpop.’ The initial announcement was not very well received by fans of any of the groups the members are already a part of. Despite the bad reactions at first, they have had an incredibly successful career. They released their first self titled EP on Oct. 4, 2019. It charted at number one on the billboard charts. They had their debut concert on Oct. 5 in America at the Capitol Records Building in Los Angeles. They made their television debut on “The Ellen Show” on Oct. 9. The group went on a 10 date tour of North America, “We Are The Future Live.” The tour was expanded to Latin America and Europe as well. The group sold out multiple venues, and maintained a high energy show throughout the 13 total stops. The group had scheduled a Tokyo Dome concert, when the Covid-19 pandemic caused it to be put on hiatus indefinitely. The group had an online concert in partnership with Beyond LIve, where they performed a new single, “Tiger Inside,” for the very first time. 

In August, the group announced they would be releasing their first full-length album. The release was set to Sept. 25, and thousands of fans anticipated the drop of the new album. On Aug. 14, a pre-release single, “100,” was premiered on Youtube. On Aug. 26, SuperM won the Seoul Mayor Award at the 2020 Newsis K-Expo, making it the first award they had won since their debut. The second pre-release single for the album, “Tiger Inside,” was released on all streaming services and the music video uploaded on Sept. 1. “Tiger Inside” became the group’s first song to enter the Gaon Digital Chart, which is an import music chart similar to billboard or hot 100 in South Korea. 

Through this all, SuperM has been posting teasers, videos and having live streams to interact with fans. SuperM has a text messaging system that allows fans to get notifications from them directly, and the members use social media to stay connected. The anticipation for this album can be felt in all the online spaces that they use, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. Fans were encouraged to send in questions for the members to answer during a pre-release live video hosted on Youtube before the album was available. The physical albums were made available for fans to purchase at Targets across America on Sept. 25. 

The album itself has a total of 15 songs, three of which have music videos. Two of the songs are from the tour that they held earlier in the year. The total length of the album is 50 minutes and 57 seconds, and if you purchased a certain member’s version of the digital album, it includes a bonus narration from that member. The physical album had five versions, with an exclusive cover version from both Target and Amazon. Each album comes with the disc, a photo book, two photocards including one individual and one of the group, one ID card with a special ID card holder and one postcard. All together there are 14 possible photocards, nine possible postcards, and 21 possible ID cards. 

In addition to all of this, The group also announced a collaboration with Marvel when they released the album. The SuperMXMarvel collaboration is currently for pre-order on the SuperM shop, and SMglobalshop. There are three different shirts, a hat, a tote bag, two different lanyards, a logo key ring, a luggage set and a mini brochure that includes a set of photo cards. You can purchase the items with or without a digital version of the album included. They really seem to be living up to their title of ‘avengers of kpop’ with this collaboration. 

If you get a chance to listen to the album, let me know what you think of it! My favorite songs from the album are “With You,” “Wish You Were Here” and “Better Days.”