T-Ara

T-ara (Korean: 티아라; Korean pronunciation: [tʰiara]) is a South Korean girl group formed by Mnet Media in 2009. Before their debut, there was a high level of interest in the group as they were called "Super Rookies" and had been training for three years prior to debut.^[1] Originally a five-member group, they released their first song "Good Person" for the soundtrack of the Korean drama Cinderella Man in April 2009. In June 2009 members Jiwon and Jiae left the group, delaying the group's debut. The next month, T-ara regrouped to become a six-member group with the addition of Boram, Qri, and Soyeon, and released their debut single "거짓말" ("Lies").^[2] In July 2010, T-ara introduced a new member, Ryu Hwayoung, to become a seven-member group. ^[3]

Pre-debut

The original five T-ara members were trained for three years, and released their first song "좋은 사람" (Good Person) for the Korean drama Cinderella Man soundtrack. In early 2009, Jiyeon was in a collaboration with SeeYa and Davichi for project single called "여성시대" (Women's Generation).^{[citation needed]}

In June 2009, Core Contents Media announced that Ji-ae and Ji-won left due to differences in music style. Soyeon, Boram and Qri were added. The group's agency began to release promotional pictures in July 2009 in accordance with the new members. Afterward, T-ara released their debut single "거짓말" (Lies).

2009: Debut

T-ara made its debut on MBC's Radio Star talk show on July 28, 2009.^[4] The music video was released that day. Their first performance was on Mnet's M! Countdown show, where they performed "Lies" and "Wanna Play?". Their debut was looked upon negatively by netizens, who noted that it was lipsynched and commented that it seemed like an elementary school performance.^[5] The group announced afterward that future performances would be live.^[6] A few members of T-ara (Eunjung, Soyeon, Hyomin and Park Ji-Yeon) were in a project group with Supernova, a six member male group for the digital single, TTL (Time to Love).The single TTL became the girls first number 1 as it topped many of the online charts. On December 1, 2009, T-ara released their first full-length album, named Absolute First Album. This album had two singles, "Like The First Time" and both with music videos.

2010: Absolute Album, repackage, and Temptastic

On January 1, 2010, T-ara won their first ever award on the New Year's Day episode of Music Bank for their hit song ". Two days later, they won the Mutizen award on Inkigayo. T-ara also performed at a traditional New Year's festival version of the song. The following week, T-ara won their second consecutive Music Bank and Mutizen awards. The next week, T-Ara won their third consecutive mutizen award, thus winning the triple crown.

Later in the month, Core Contents Media announced that Eunjung and Hyomin would take part, alongside label mates, in project group, 'Wonder Woman'. Consequently, the group announced promotions for their follow up single, "Like The First Time" (Korean: "처음처럼").

In February, the group announce the release of a repackaged version of their debut album, entitled Breaking Heart. The music video for its lead single, "I Go Crazy Because of You" (Korean: "너 때문에 미쳐"), was released on February 24, 2010. The group commenced comeback performances with Mnet's M!Countdown. After promotions for "I Go Crazy Because of You", T-ara promoted the next single off the repackaged album titled "I'm Really Hurt".

On November 23, 2010 T-ara released a new music video for their song "Why Are You Being Like This". ^[7] The group will begin promotions with their new 7th member, Hwayoung, and a new leader, Boram and as they reveal their first comeback performance this coming December 3rd on KBS 2TV’s ‘Music Bank’! It was later officially revealed that the mini-album's title track would be titled "Yayaya". The music video and mini album premiered on Mnet on December 1, 2010. The mini-album Temptastic has received 70,000 pre-orders, showing T-ara's explosive popularity.