I. Introduction
The S was a female duo girl group from Miryang, South Korea. The meaning of the name 'The S' is 'The Sexy', and it is a naming that emphasizes the initial S resembling a woman's silhouette.
II. History
Kim Geun-young and Lee Yun-mi were arranged in a sexy concept with a perfectly contrasting black and white image, as their company wanted to promote Yoon-mi as a "normal" Korean girl and Geunyoung as a black woman, as she was half African, but completely ignoring her half Korean heritage.
Prior to her group debut, Lee Yoon- mi appeared as a non-celebrity female college student in the KBS2 entertainment program Mountain Lodge Meeting - War of the Roses Season 2, and was as active as celebrities with her easy-going and evil image on the TV screen, and a fan cafe was opened and had 40,000 members . She was said to be a non-celebrity when she appeared, but in fact, she was a trainee preparing for her debut, and her agency, made Lee Yoon-mi appear on this broadcast to raise awareness of the group before debut, and the program really hit the jackpot.
Kim Geunyoung was announced right before the groups' debut to be in the group, she had gone through many companies as a trainee before hand and was overly sexualized by every company she joined, as the men in the industry found her to be "exotic and rare" due to being half African and half Korean.
In 2003, when the news of the debut of 'The S' was published. Due to the antipathy towards the sexy concept and the fact that it was revealed that Lee Yoon-mi would be one of the members, the public were eager to 'see how good you sing live'. There were many favorable reviews after the debut stage, saying that it was unexpected that her vocal skills were not bad.
However, Lee Yoon-mi's popularity did not lead to the group being such, so album promotions were sluggish. She was popular as Lee Yoon-mi on her own but the group's music was not popular at all. She would go on to say that she was confident in performing live, but she did not appear in MBC, which was conducting all live, or SBS, which was generous with lip syncing, leading to anger from the public. In response, she appeared on KBS2's music programs such as Music Bank and High Five. There was no way to promote it other than variety shows such as Mnet , KMTV , and cable channels, outside of music shows for the group due to the public backlash.
In the end of July, Yoon-mi was forced to drop out of the Mountain Lodge Meeting - War of the Roses season 2 (Part.2) , which she appeared in regularly . The reason is that one of the female cast members at the time was involved in a sponsor controversy and be a victim of an domestic violence incident. This lead to three days before the recording, the cast member deciding to disappear. The public would be angry at the cast members as a whole and it would later be revealed that the cast member and former Miss Korea, Yoon Hye-jung was the victim who went into hiding.
As the controversy raged online, the production crew said they would completely reorganize 'War of the Roses Part.2 (Season 2)' with new male and female performers to renew the image, and all existing cast members, including Lee Yun-mi, would be fired, though publicly were forced to say that they dropped out, to renew and protect the network MBC and the program.
On August 2nd, 2003, Yoon-mi Lee 's bare breasts were exposed on the stage of KMTV's Show! Music Tank, which was recorded at Gyeongpodae Beach in Gangneung . Lee Yoon-mi, who took the stage wearing an strapless top, had an accident where her left clothes flew off from the intense dancing, completely exposing her breasts in front of 20,000 concert goers. She said of the incident that, at the time she didn't even know her clothes were gone because she was so absorbed in the stage. Fortunately, it was not a live broadcast, so this accident part was edited out of the broadcast, and the stage scenes in the second half, where Lee Yoon-mi's exposure accident occurred, were edited and only the sound from the stage was shown with alternate scene . As for the alternate scene, the network had recorded a vignette of 'The S' playing in swimsuits on the beach during the day before, as a result it replaced the incident on the broadcast. After that, the original broadcast tape for this stage completely disappeared from existence.
After this accident, 'The S' stopped their official team activities after less than a month. It is said that Yoon-mi Lee felt skeptical and ashamed of her singing activities and declared that she would no longer be active. In addition, Yoon-mi's parents stubbornly protested and opposed her activities, which eventually lead to her withdrawal from the group. As a result, the music video for the second single, 'Inside', was not shown. This led to a conflict with the agency, and in early October, the agency announced its official position that it was contemplating a member replacement or disbandment of 'The S'. They eventually decided to disband. In the end, their debut album became their last album, and there were many articles criticizing the music industry as they believed the sexy concept craze caused South Korean women to be a disaster, but the industry didn't care. This album helped start the great flood of sexy concepts.
After leaving the group, Lee Yoon-mi became well known as an actress, after leaving We Entertainment in 2004, she auditioned for many different morning dramas. A few years later she married composer Joo Young- hoon and is now the mother of three daughters. She also occasionally participates in OST work. Yoon-mi also is an entrepreneur who sponsors children through the organization Compassion International that helps children orphaned by the North/South Korean war.
Kim Geunyoung became a sub MC for iTV's "Park Cheol's Entertainment Road Show" but quit the entertainment industry after the show and disappeared from the public eye.
In 2011, on the MBC program "Quiz That Changes the World, Sebaekwi" Lee Yoon-mi, appeared and revealed her parenting diary to show how she successfully parents her children without falling into the abusive tropes many parents in South Korea do.
On the broadcast, MC Lee Hwi-jae introduced Lee Yoon-mi as "a member of girl group The S." Yoon-mi responded to this with embarrassment, "Why are you bringing up something from so long ago? It was 10 years ago." Lee Hwi-jae, who said he "clearly remembers group S." Kim Gu-ra would then pick on the MC and say , "It seems like you were trying to hit on her back then too." Regarding group S, Yoon-mi said, "We were dancers not really singers. Now I have a child and it's kind of embarrassing." And the would reveal she was always wanting to be an actress but the company steered her in the direction of joining the group.
III. Discography
Studio Album
The First Album (2003)
