In this article, we are going to provide you with a detailed rundown of everything about Shinvi and their history in the entertainment industry in South Korea. It is also worth mentioning that they also hit the spotlight as a girl group that was being produced and managed by SM Entertainment. One of the members, whose real name is Oh Sang-eun, was said to be the only member active as a solo artist and who is still pursuing a career as a singer these days. Meanwhile, the other members, such as Yuna and Yoo Soo-jin were reported of leaving the entertainment world and having a normal life, rather than being an idol. Without waiting any longer, let’s take a more complete look at Shinvi’s full members’ profiles, activities and promotions, as well as the latest news, in the sections below. Let’s scroll down and check out the detailed information about Shinvi!
Shinvi’s Group Profile
There are two meanings of the group name: one is Shinvi (in English) which is said to contain the meaning of victory, and the other meaning (神 飛) refers to the day dedicated to God. In other words, it means to fly towards God, to fly high. During their promotion era, they were signed under Cid.K Entertainment. Meanwhile, the album promotion and artist production itself was conducted by SM Entertainment. SM Entertainment prepared for the group’s debut as will be detailed in the future. SM Entertainment was the agency that was in charge of management during the release of the new group to relieve the burden when the company’s situation became worse after the disbandment of HOT. Actually, Shinvi’s debut can be considered as SM Entertainment’s new girl group. SM Entertainment was preparing SES for the disbandment of the group. The agency was not in a hurry like when it debuted SES. It all started with Shinvi’s member recruitment, starting from Oh Sang-eun who passed the SM Entertainment audition in 1998, when the group was planned. Then Yoo Soo-jin joined the audition around 2000, but SM Entertainment only noticed Yoo Soo-jin’s potential after dropping her. She has a beautiful and soft tone with good singing ability (although it was a little pushed down to the main vocalist Oh Sang-eun), and she has a slim and beautiful appearance that would be praised as a beauty everywhere regardless of East and West. Eventually, SM Entertainment contacted Yoo Soo-jin and asked her to audition again. After receiving the call, Yoo Soo-jin got the courage to audition again, and as a result, she passed the audition and became an SM Entertainment trainee. After the school exam, the other member, Yuna, is going to play with her friends with ease, receiving an offer from an SM Entertainment employee for casting, and entering the company after an audition. As such, three members of the mysterious debut group were cast and also many other trainees were cast, and in 2001, among numerous competitors, SM Entertainment finally selected Yuna, Yoo Soo-jin, and Oh Sang-eun as the debut members. At the beginning of Shinvi’s debut, the public was confused and there was a lot of speculation regarding the debut of this girl group. Initially, confusion occurred when BoA debuted as a solo artist, but SM Entertainment had actually been preparing and in the process of debuting a girl group under the name ShinBi. There were even some photos that had been circulating of which members will debut in the girl group. But when there was news that the girl group that was going to debut was named Shinvi, fans and the public responded only to old rumors that were circulating again. The second point that made both the fans and the public confused was when the album released by Shinvi was originally scheduled for late 2001, but the release was delayed for one reason or another. Shinvi finally made their debut on stage in February 2002, but it wasn’t until the end of March that their album was finally released. When fans and the public were also tired of seeing girl groups doing too much lipsyncing when performing, Shinvi became one of the girl groups, that at that time, performed live and sang on stage without lipsyncing. This was a good view and got a positive response from the public and fans. But despite all that, Shinvi, who were nicknamed Live Performers didn’t get enthusiastic for too long even though the music video of their debut single “To My Friend” features Shinwa’s Jun-jin.
Shinvi didn’t become very popular because the agency did not help much with their promotion at that time. Apart from that, the lyrics of “To My Friend” caused some controversy because of the public’s misconception that the song is the point of view of the lesbian community. This has become widely discussed in the online community and added with music videos showing misinterpretations from the public to support these misunderstandings. In early February 2002, Shinvi’s Cid.K Official Site held an online poll to determine what songs the girl group would release for their next comeback. Fans chose “Darling” as the next song for Shinvi’s comeback and, finally, Shinvi released the song in early April 2002. “Darling” is a song that has cute pop and upbeat characteristics and is also very different from Shinvi’s debut single, “To My Friend”, which has a ballad genre.
Apart from the comeback single, Shinvi also released another song titled “Summer in Love” that was featured as one of the tracks on SMTOWN.com’s Summer Vacation Compilation Album, which was a mellow but upbeat song, but more mature than “Darling”. Unfortunately, Shinvi arguably failed again in releasing their new song and got much attention neither from the public nor the fans.
“Summer in Love” is the last song released in which Shinvi participated in the entertainment industry. Shinvi also appeared in the release of the song “My Angel My Light”, which is one of the tracks of the 2002 Winter Vacation from SMTOWN.com, but only Yoo Soo-jin and Oh Sang-eun were featured in the picture on the album’s jacket, while Yuna’s voice could be heard through one of her appearances in a song titled “I Miss You”.
Yuna’s absence from Shinvi’s last appearance created much speculation about the girl group’s existence. Their fans who had a fandom called Linos were looking forward to continuing their career in the entertainment industry, but after waiting for further news for several years there has been no official news about Shinvi. With that, fans and the public assumed that Shinvi must have been disbanded.
