''The Beginning'' is the debut studio album by

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

n pop group

JYJ JYJ (formerly known as Junsu/Jejung/Yuchun in Japan) is a South Korean boy band formed in 2010 by Kim Junsu, Kim Jae-joong, and Park Yoo-chun, the three former members of TVXQ. Their group name is taken from the initial letters of each member's n ...

, formed by three of the five original members of

TVXQ TVXQ (stylized as TVXQ!), an initialism for Tong Vfang Xien Qi (), is a South Korean male pop duo consisting of U-Know Yunho and Max Changmin. They are known as in Japanese releases, and are sometimes referred to as DBSK, an abbreviation of ...

. It is the group's first English release, after their 2010 Japanese language

extended play An extended play record, usually referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record.

'' The...''. It was released on October 14, 2010 through Vitamin Entertainment, a division of

Warner Music Korea Warner Music Group's labels include the following. Flagship labels *Atlantic Records *Elektra Records *Parlophone Records *Warner Records Atlantic Records Group * 1st & 15th Entertainment * All Money In * Artist Partners Group * Asylum Rec ...

. Two weeks before the release of the album in South Korea, 50,000 copies of the regular edition had been pre-ordered and pre-sales for the 99,999 copies of the special edition of ''The Beginning'' reached numbers of 400,000 requests. The album was released on November 16, 2010 in the United States as a digital download, and a wider release, planned by the group for early 2011, did not materialize.

Background and development

Despite the album being sung in English, Jaejoong and Junsu were not fluent in English at the time of recording, and were still attending English lessons at the time of the album's release in America.

Promotion

The first single from the album was "Ayyy Girl," featuring

Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the ea ...

and

Malik Yusef Malik Yusef El Shabazz Jones (born April 4, 1971) is an American spoken word artist, poet, rapper, writer, composer, producer and director based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Early life He was raised in Chicago's South Side neighborho ...

. The song had moderate success in South Korea, peaking at No. 19 on Gaon's single charts. The music video for the album's second single, "Empty," was shot in December. The song debuted at No. 18 in Korea during the album's release, due to strong digital sales. The band toured Asia in October and November 2010 in promotion of the album. This began with two showcases in Seoul on October 12, at the 11,000 seating Hwaseong Tiger Dome at Korea University. The tickets for these events sold out in 15 minutes, and a portion of the profits was donated to

World Vision In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

. The band planned concerts in the United States in New York

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

and Los Angeles, however were denied P1 visas for these concerts. In response to this, the group performed free showcases on these dates and refunded ticket purchasers. JYJ's management, C-JeS Entertainment, was unsure of the reason for the visa denial. The band's other planned US dates in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, San Francisco and Hawaii were later cancelled. 6,400 people attended the New York showcase, despite the venue being able to hold 3,400 people. The band was featured in '' Billboard'' magazine's release of the week in November, the first time an international act has been featured. This led to the magazine's website receiving its highest daily traffic day recorded, as of 2010.

Legal injunction

The band members' previous record label as the band

SM Entertainment SM Entertainment Co., Ltd. () is a South Korean multinational entertainment agency. It is one of South Korea's largest entertainment companies where it was established in 1995 by record executive and record producer Lee Soo-man. The company ha ...

, filed an injunction against the sales of the album on October 8. However, South Korean digital retailers defied the request, and proceeded with the sales on October 14. The injunction was issued due to the South Korean courts not having reached a verdict on the members' ongoing court case with SM Entertainment. In December 2010 they were successful in their lawsuit against SM Entertainment.

Track listing

Chart

Album chart positions

Reported sales

*Sales figure is based on South Korean imports of the album, as the album has not been released domestically in Japan currently.

Release history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beginning, The 2010 albums JYJ albums Warner Music Group albums