Popu Lady

History

After training for a year in singing and dancing, Popu Lady debuted on 14 December 2012 with an extended play, Keep Keep Loving, and a homonymous song, being a cover of "Pretty Boy", originally recorded by the Norwegian female group M2M. Keep Keep Loving entered the top 10 best-selling chart in Taiwan when it hit the stores, and the title track's music video reached 200,000 views in six days and more than 800,000 after one month. In 2012, Popu Lady also sang "Feel Me" with Jiro Wang for TV series KO One Return soundtrack.

The group released a second EP, Popu Future, on 13 September 2013, and a third one titled More on 22 August 2014. It also sang "Honey" (Chinese: 蜜糖) for the soundtrack of a TV series, Say I Love You. Popu Lady hosted a number of variety shows, including East Network Pop U Show (Chinese: 東網 Pop U秀) from 11 August 2014 to 17 July 2015, and occasionally Love Blog (Chinese: 初戀誌). Many of its songs were featured in TV series, as Spring Love, Fall in Love with Me, and Go, Single Lady.

On 7 August 2015, the group released a digital single, "All About Him" (Chinese: 妳說他), for the official soundtrack of a 2015 feature film, Our Times. The lyrics edition of the music video was released three days later, while the official version was uploaded to the label official YouTube channel on 20 October. "All About Him" debuted at number 43 on KKBOX Chinese Singles Daily Chart on 15 October, at number 54 on KKBOX Chinese Singles Weekly Chart on 17 October, and at number 10 on KKBOX Chinese Singles Monthly Chart on 31 October. The song peaked at number 2 on the Daily and Monthly Charts on 19 and 24 October respectively, and at number 3 on the Monthly Chart on 30 November. It also ranked 24 in Billboard's China V Chart on 12 December 2015.

On 23 September 2015, HIM International Music launched the campaign "Get Out of Popu Lady" to eliminate a member of the group and make it more competitive on the market. For this purpose, an online poll was held from 2 October to 20 November 2015 to allow the public to vote one of the five members of the group out. At the same time, a reality called Get Out of Popu Lady Knockout (Chinese: Get Out Of Popu Lady淘汰賽) was launched, in which the girls displayed their skills in a series of challenges to survive. Netizens believed the poll was merely a viral marketing technique to promote the group and called for its cessation, using the symbol "5-1 = 0"; furthermore, on 15 October 2015, the poll website was hacked and voting was temporarily blocked. The result of the poll was announced on 22 November during a promotional activity of the group's fourth extended play, Gossip Girls, previously released on 20 November. According to the announcement, as Dayuan and Yushan tied, none of the five members was removed from the group. The activity has heavily been criticized by the public as being a fraud, saying such a result was predictable and unsurprising. On the other hand, Bao'er won the survival show and got the chance to release a solo EP.

In the meantime, four songs from Gossip Girls were released as singles: "Excuse Me" was released on 28 September 2015, "Popu OK Boom" (Chinese: POPU OK繃) on 12 October, "Don't Say Goodbye" (Chinese: 我不要) on 27 October, with its music video the following day, and "Gossip Girls" on 16 November. For its fourth extended play, Popu Lady changed their concept from cute and cheerful to sexy and dark; this reflects in the lead title track, a cover of German duo Symphobia's "I Do", which samples the Dance of the Little Swans from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. The music video was released on 18 December and the dance version on 29. In November the group also featured in the soundtrack of Marry Me, or Not? with "Conquered Love" (Chinese: 愛.接招).

On 29 February 2016, it performed the closing act of Taipei's Lantern Festival; the members then embarked in some solo activities: Hongshi, Bao'er and Tingxuan took part in musical Double-sided Dancing Queen with AISA troupe, and Hongshi e Yushan starred in a web series. On 29 September, Popu Lady released its first photobook, titled Thai HOT! (Chinese: 泰HOT！). Hongshi and Tingxuan starred in television series Behind Your Smile, a Taiwanese melodrama which aired from November 13 on TTV, in a main and supporting role, respectively, while, on October 14, Dayuan, Tingxuan and Bao'er started shooting for movie A Tale Of Two-Timer with SpeXial's Sam.

Members