Musical History 4

2008–present: Beyond Korea

On October 2, 2007, SM Entertainment announced a third Super Junior sub-unit Super Junior-M, a subgroup designated for the Chinese market.[33][34] This announcement had created a controversy between the fans and the management as fans did not support new members for a Super Junior subgroup.[e] Nonetheless, Super Junior-M were successful in China, having the opportunity to hold two sold-out concerts in Hong Kong,[35] top weekly ratings with their appearance on variety programs,[36], and were given endorsement contracts, notably Semir and Pepsi.[37] With the absence of almost half of the members in Korea, a fourth Super Junior sub-unit was created that same year to prevent Super Junior from disappearing in the Korean music industry. With five members from Super Junior-T and Yesung, they formed the subgroup, Super Junior-Happy. Super Junior-Happy released the EP Cooking? Cooking! on June 5, 2008, and promotions ended on September 7, lasting for four months. In November 2008, Super Junior-T returned, this time as a singing group in Japan, called SuperJunior-TxMoeyan; this group added Moeyan, a famous two-woman comedy group in Japan.[38]

Super Junior's first major tour, Super Show, commenced on February 22, 2008 in Seoul.[39][40][41][f] The tour covered three countries and had shows on six different cities, including Bangkok, Shanghai, and Beijing.[34][40][42] On August 2, 2008, Super Junior expanded their routes to Genting Highlands, Malaysia, being one of the top guest performers at the MTV Asia Awards 2008 along with other international performing artists such as OneRepublic and the Jabbawockeez.[4] They are the third SM artist to win Favorite Artist Korea at the MTV Asia Awards after Kangta and BoA, and the second musical group to win the award after JTL in 2003.[4]

Super Junior's third album, Sorry, Sorry, was released on March 12, 2009.[43] The title single off the album, "Sorry, Sorry" was digitally released on March 9, 2009.[44] In less than a week after preorders were announced, over 150,000 copies were pre-ordered.[45] Sorry, Sorry was their first album to debut at #1 on the Hanteo Charts, and it sold over 29,000 copies the first day, defeating Seo Taiji's record of 25,000.[46] Promotions for the album started March 13 with the performance of "Sorry, Sorry" and "Why I Like You" on Music Bank.[47] Two weeks later, "Sorry, Sorry" became the number one song of the week on the same program.[48] During the group's performance on music program Popular Songs on March 15, ratings went up to as high as 14%, the highest in recent years.[49] From March to May, "Sorry, Sorry" collected a total of ten #1 awards with consecutive wins.[50][51]