I. Introduction
Tashannie (타샤니) was a female duo under World Music. They made their debut on August 3, 1999 with their first album Parallel Prophecys. The group was put together by Uptown leader Jeong Yeon-jun as an all female equivalent to Uptown, who Yoonmirae was also an member of. The group was comprised of the previously mentioned Yoonmirae and Lee SooA (an former predebut member of Fin.KL, who was replaced by Lee Hyori after Hyori left SM Entertainment, because SooA disliked the change in concept for the group to a cute image).
II. History of the Group, Disbandment and Beyond
Their debut "Can't stand it" was included in two versions of the album. The Techno version, which was based on the popular techno at the time, was actively promoted, and the alternative version of the album with production was handled by Uptown's leader Jeong Yeon-jun. Despite the album Parallel Prophecys having numerous songs composed by future SM Entertainment employee and future HYBE founder Bang Si-Hyuk, as well as songs written and composed by Jewelry, SeeYa, SG Wannabe & Lee Hyori producer Park Geun-tae, the album failed miserably. Critics actually were in love with the album, with it receiving high review marks from numerous publications, and still being reviewed highly by critics who have stumbled upon the album in the years since it's release. Upon the failure of "Can't Stand It" as an single, they would remake "Day by Day" an song from Jeong Yeon -joon's 1993 debut solo album When a Day Passes By. The song would go on to be covered by numerous other groups and auditioning trainees on survival shows in the future. Despite the girls' version of "Day by Day" being called an masterpiece by those in the industry, the music broadcast chart performance was insignificant in comparison, as again fans did not like the song. This is when they would start promoting the Geun-tae produced and composed song "Warning". Unlike the previous songs, the song was popular with fans, but did not chart anywhere close to the songs of other girl groups like S.E.S, Baby V.O.X. or Fin.KL. However, on KBS's Lee So-ra's Proposal, many people would watch a performance of "Warning" from February 2nd, 2002, and were amazed by Annie's dancing skills. The members of the show would say it was surprising that she had excellent rapping skills while dancing like that. Sadly this would not benefit the girls much, who had both been promoting the album now for close to 3 years straight. It was difficult for them to even make it into the top 20, and coincidentally, all three songs that were active as singles during this promotional period time ended up being mediocre on the charts.
There would be an interesting turn of events later in 2002 however, the rhythm game Pump It Up The OBG, which was released in May 2000 after Tashannie's album activities ended, included the second follow-up song 'Warning' in an game update, and the game itself became a big hit in the arcade and quickly went viral. Because of this game's success 'Warning' would become Tashannie's representative song. An at the time junior co-ed group Koyote remade it for their album Feel UP in 2005 , and another junior Davichi also sang this song a lot in various broadcasts and events across their entire career. In the year 2002, the group would be announced to be disbanded in Q4 with the reasoning being, the co-ed group S#ARP, who were also under the same parent label, was involved in an assault and blackmail case, however the news would not reach them right away.
A couple months later when Yoonmirae released her second solo album Gemini, now being signed under Avex Taiwan Inc. an sublabel of Japanese label Avex Trax. "Haru Haru" which was one of the many failed singles for their debut album, would gain popularity and lead to people purchasing copies of the album suddenly, even in Japan. Later, in 2002, during what the members thought was just Tashannie's hiatus, there was an interview done with Annie. In the interview, she said she was currently staying in Vancouver, Canada to prepare for Tashannie's 2nd album for a few months. She then would be joining Yoon Mi- rae, who was resting in Los Angeles, USA after her 1st solo album promotions, to go record Tashannie's 2nd album in the US and perform a joint concert with Uptown. However the members would be blindsided when World Music shut down suddenly and sold all copyrights of singers' albums and publishing under World Music to SM Entertainment. As an result, SM Entertainment also owns the copyright of Tashannie's first full-length album, as well as all of their unreleased materials for their untitled second album. It would later be revealed that Yoonmirae was promoting now under Avex as not only did World Music sell their assets to SM Entertainment, they filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. However, for some reason World Music would still continue making new groups and debuting them during the bankruptcy court proceedings, all the way up until they were finished in February 2003. In that same month they debuted a new girl group called the " Bubble Sisters" which had to be immediately disbanded as a result of the company being officially now non existent. Julliet would also be disbanded that day as in the years since they changed from a co-ed group to a female duo, the fans had turned on them.
After being moved to Avex and continuing to release solo albums, Yoonmirae established themselves as a talented singer in the music industry. In 2007, she married her long time friend, Tiger JK of Drunken Tiger.
Annie, now going again under her real name Lee SooA, would be active in various entertainment programs such as MBC ' Brain Survivor ' and KBS ' Happy Confrontation ' as characters with poor Korean language speaking abilities. She was then active as a fixed member in the early days of Find the X-Man, and this became her last TV show that she would star in.
She would later state in an interview when she appeared on the show "근황올림픽" that she received offers for a solo album here and there after being unable to promote with Tashannie due to the company closure, but she turned them all down because he wanted to remain loyal to Yoonmirae, hoping they would reunite for an new album. She would say that after no interest being shown from her bandmate in new activities as a group at that time, she started a dance school called Aegis Academy with famous choreographer Hong Young- joo. She would appear in a rap feature for As One, and Enjel as Annie K. She would also be the choreographer for actor Kim Yun-hye's 2003 debut album that would be shelved as her company would decide it was not strong enough. She would move to Hong Kong in late 2004 after sustaining an severe back injury while working on an live musical. She said she stopped even trying to dance afterward for numerous years, which made her very depressed as she loved to dance. She would in the mid 2000s after moving there, also suffer a brain tumor and have to go through the treatment for it. The JTBC show Sugarman would reach out to her family to request she and Yoonmirae reunite as a musical group for the show in 2016-2017. The interviewers on the show would notate that her tone when saying such made it seem if there was no possibility at all of that happening, when she was mentioning Sugarman. SooA now lives with their spouse and daughter, is still in Hong Kong and seems to have no desire to return to the industry. However, she and Yoonmirae do stay in contact, and to this day are on good terms.
III. Discography
Parallel Prophecys [1999.08.03]
