SHINee

South Korean boy band SHINee emerged as one of the nation's foremost pop acts through their energetic, bass-driven electronic dance-pop and elaborate, precisely synchronized choreography. Chart-topping success followed at home as well as in Japan and the United States via the albums The Misconceptions of Us in 2013, Odd in 2015, and The Story of Light in 2018. Mandatory military service suspended group activity near the end of the 2010s, yet the members resurfaced in 2021 with Don't Call Me, their seventh Korean album and another number-one entry. The 2023 release Hard saw the ensemble venture across hip-hop, drum'n'bass, funk, and smooth R&B.

SM Entertainment assembled the lineup in 2008, bringing together singers and dancers Lee "Onew" Jinki, Kim Jonghyun, Kim "Key" Kibum, Choi Minho, and Lee Taemin. Their debut mini-album Replay reached number eight, after which the full-length The Shinee World entered at number three before climbing to number one upon reissue as the repackaged edition Amigo a few months later. The lead single "Sanso Gateun Neo (Love Like Oxygen)" turned out to be a cover of Danish X Factor winner Martin Hoberg Hedegaard's "Show the World."

Each of the next five SHINee projects achieved number one on the Korean chart: the 2009 EPs Romeo and 2009, Year of Us, both of which also appeared in Japan with moderate results; Amigo along with its 2010 successor Lucifer, later repackaged as Hello; and the 2011 Japanese-language album The First, which peaked at number four in that market. A series of Japanese singles placed the group in Oricon history as the first foreign act whose initial three entries all landed inside the Top Three. International recognition arrived that same year when the band performed at the sixth London Korean Film Festival and staged a sold-out gala concert in London, the first by any Korean group, with tickets vanishing in under a minute. Their 2012 "comeback" EP Sherlock marked the first digital release distributed globally.

The third Korean album Dream Girl, Vol. 1: The Misconceptions of You appeared in 2013, followed months later by its counterpart Why So Serious?: The Misconceptions of Me, which topped the Billboard World Albums chart; the two were later combined as The Misconceptions of Us. Japanese audiences received the second studio album Boys Meet U that year as well. A fifth EP, Everybody, closed out 2013. Activity slowed in 2014, limited to the third Japanese album I'm Your Boy. The fourth Korean album Odd arrived in 2015 and again led both the domestic and Billboard World Albums charts before being repackaged as Married to the Music. The pattern repeated in 2016 with 1 of 1 and its follow-up 1 and 1 issued a month apart, alongside the fourth Japanese album DxDxD.

Jonghyun died by suicide on December 17, 2017. A posthumous solo album, Poet | Artist, came out the next year, as did the EP The Story of Light EP, Vol. 1: The 6th Mini Album, which debuted at number two on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart in May 2018. Two additional volumes in the series followed, introducing the singles "I Want You" and "Our Page." September brought The Story of Light: Epilogue, merging the prior three EPs and adding the track "Countless." Several members began South Korea's mandatory military service by the end of 2018, suspending band activity until 2020.

SHINee reemerged in early 2021 with the seventh album Don't Call Me, which topped the Korean chart. Their next effort, 2023's Hard, reached number two and displayed an expanded stylistic range that included jazzy, funky, synthy, and dance-oriented material alongside smooth R&B, hip-hop, and electro-pop.