13 members from 3 units form one team: Seventeen

Among the countless boy and girl groups that the K-pop scene is known for, there are some that have nine or even more members. These include, for example, EXO with nine and originally even 12 members, The Boyz with 11 members or Loona and Treasure with 12 each. There are also larger groups, but that is rather rare. One of these very few is Seventeen with 13 members!

The name “Seventeen” stands for the 13 individual members from 3 units who together form a team: 13 + 3 + 1 = 17.

Die Units

Even before their debut, Seventeen was divided into three units, each consisting of four to five members with the same specialty.

Hip-hop Unit

Artist name	Real name	Birthday
S.Coups (Leader)	Choi Seungcheol	08.08.1995
Wonwoo	Jeon Wonwoo	17.07.1996
Mingyu	Kim Mingyu	06.04.1997
Vernon	Hansol Vernon Six	18.02.1998

All four members of the Hip-hop Unit are rappers who regularly write their own raps for the group's songs. The eldest S.Coups is not only the leader of the unit, but also of all of Seventeen. The youngest member of the unit, Vernon, was born in New York and is half American on his mother's side.

Artist name	Real name	Birthday
Woozi (Unit Leader)	Lee Jihoon	22.11.1996
Jeonghan	Yoon Jeonghan	04.10.1995
Joshua	Joshua Hong	30.12.1995
DK	Lee Seokmin	18.02.1997
Seungkwan	Boo Seungkwan	16.01.1998

As the name suggests, the five members of the unit are all vocals. Unit leader Woozi co-wrote and composed almost every song on Seventeen's albums. He also regularly directs the vocals on recordings. Largely because of Woozi, Seventeen is known as one of the few idol groups that produces most of their own music, even if not all of it. In the meantime, the other members of the vocal unit have also worked on songs several times. Like Vernon, Joshua was born in the United States but has no American parent.

Performance Unit

Artist name	Real name	Birthday
Hoshi (Unit Leader)	Kwon Soonyoung	15.06.1996
Jun	Wen Junhui	10.06.1996
The8	Xu Ming Hao	07.11.1997
Dino (Maknae)	Lee Chan	11.02.1999

The Performance Unit members are primarily dancers, but like the others, have also taken on a role in writing Seventeen's songs a few times. Everyone has also worked on choreographies for the performance team, and Hoshi in particular is also mentioned when it comes to choreographies for Seventeen's songs, in which he regularly plays a large part. The group has two Chinese members - Jun & The8 - who are both in the performance unit. Jun was active as an actor as a child in China.

Seventeen's albums often contain songs that were not recorded by the whole group, but by individual units. Their albums also often contain posters, photo books or extras that are divided up by units. For example, “ Heng:garae ” consists of several small photo books that are even named after the units.

Now that you've hopefully gotten an overview of the units and members that make up Seventeen, let's get into the boy band's history!

The members of Seventeen have been appearing on the online program “Seventeen TV” since 2013. Five seasons were released by 2015; Trainees left or new ones joined in almost every one. At the beginning there were already nine of the current members, but it wasn't until the fifth season that Seventeen, as we know the group today, was complete with the addition of The8. During the show, the group held several concerts and was already partly active in the units back then. After Seventeen TV, the final 13 members were featured in “Seventeen Project: Big Debut Plan.” The show aired between May 2 and May 26, 2015, concluding on May 26 with Seventeen's debut showcase. Seventeen was the first K-pop boy band to debut through a one-hour show on a major network. Three days later, on May 29th, the first album “17 Carat” was released.

Seventeen has been active for over six years now and has built a large fan base called “Carat”. To date, the group has released 14 Korean albums, two Japanese albums and three Japanese singles. So that you don't lose track of the number, we have put them all together in a table for you!

Korean Albums

With so many albums, Seventeen has of course celebrated some successes and reached milestones, of which we'll introduce you to the biggest and most interesting ones here!

The boy band's first album “17 Carat” brought them their first major successes. There was no other K-pop album that stayed longer on the US charts that year and it was the only rookie album to be included in Billboard's list of the ten best K-pop albums of 2015. The second album, “Boys Be,” became the best-selling rookie album of the year and earned Seventeen awards at the “Golden Disk Awards,” “Seoul Music Awards,” and “Gaon Chart K-Pop Awards.” With “Pretty U”, the title song from their third album “Love & Letter”, the group won their first music show, a year after their debut.

“Don`t Wanna Cry”, the title song from the sixth album “Al1”, was the first Seventeen music video to be viewed 200 million times on YouTube and can therefore be described as one of the boy band's most popular songs.

The special album “ Director's Cut ”, a repackage of the seventh album “Teen, Age”, was released in February 2018 and just days after the release, Seventeen was included in Time Magazine's list of the six best K-Pop groups you should know. The following album “ You Make My Day ” was the boy group's first album to go platinum. Half a year later, the next album “ You Made My Dawn ” was released, the title song of which “Home ” won ten music shows!

Even after that, Seventeen continued to go uphill and received the award for Album of the Year from Mnet for the first time for the album “ An Ode ”, released in September 2019. (“Mnet Asian Music Award for Album of the Year”) In addition, “An Ode” was named the best K-Pop album of 2019 by Billboard. The list, which includes a total of 25 albums, also included releases by EXO (4th place), Stray Kids (8th), Dreamcatcher (9th), Twice (14th) and BTS (16th).

Nine months after “An Ode”, in June 2020, Seventeen reached another milestone with the new album “ Heng:garae ”. After just five days, over a million copies were sold, more than any other album by the group before!

This year, the boy group released their latest album “ Your Choice ” as part of the Power of `Love` project, which will run through 2021. In an interview with the magazine “Seventeen”, Wonwoo said of the project: “We knew that the message of our previous albums, which provide comfort and encouragement to the youth of our generation, resonated with many people. This year, we chose the universal theme of 'love' as the main theme for our "Power of 'Love'" project because we wanted to make music that many more people could identify with and find parallels in their own lives.”

Album	Release date
We Make You	30.05.2018
Happy Ending (Single Album)	29.05.2019
Fallin` Flower (Single Album)	01.04.2020
24H	09.09.2020
Not Alone (Digitales Single Album)	21.04.2021

Before their official Japanese debut, Seventeen has six concerts from June 15-24. February with the title “17 Japan Concert: Say The Name #Seventeen” and performed in front of 50,000 fans. They were definitely very happy about the first Japanese album “We Make You”, which was released on May 30, 2018. This mainly contains Japanese versions of previously released Korean songs, but also a completely new song called “Call Call Call”.

Almost exactly a year later, on May 29, 2019, Seventeen released their first Japanese single album “ Happy Ending ”, which topped the Oricon charts and was certified platinum by RIAJ (Recording Industry Association of Japan). The second single album “ Fallin`Flower ” also reached number 1 on the Oricon charts and also topped Billboard`s Japan Hot 100 charts. The second Japanese album “ 24H ” earned Seventeen another platinum award and the digital single “Not Alone” even went double platinum.

Seventeen is the first foreign male act in history to sell three consecutive Japanese singles over 200,000 copies in the first week each. By now it's probably clear to everyone that the boy band is one of the big ones, not just in Korea!

K-Drama Soundtracks

Individual members of Seventeen are often involved in the soundtracks of popular K-dramas. Most recently, Woozi, DK and Seungkwan sang a soundtrack together for the second season of “ Hospital Playlist ” this year.

At the end of 2015, Seventeen held their first tour "2015 Like Seventeen - Boys Wish" with four dates. Because of its success, two more concerts were added in February 2016 under the name “Like Seventeen - Boys Wish Encore Concert”. Of course, many more concerts followed, including the first world tour “2017 Seventeen 1st World Tour `Diamond Edge`”, during which the group visited thirteen cities in Asia and North America! In 2020, the “Ode To You” tour, which took place in 2019, had to end had started, probably canceled because of Corona. The documentary series “Hit The Road” was released in mid-2020, giving fans a look behind the scenes of the Ode To You Tour.

On March 21, 2018, the first sub-unit called “Seventeen BSS” - “SVT BSS” for short - debuted with the digital single “Just Do It”. “BSS” stands for “BooSeokSoon,” which is a common nickname for the three members of the unit - Seungkwan, DK and Hoshi.

Hoshi is the first member of Seventeen to release a solo mixtape. He made his solo debut on April 2, 2021 with “ Spider .” It’s probably only a matter of time before other members of the group officially make their solo debuts. We can’t wait!


All members of Seventeen recently renewed their contract with Pledis Entertainment and will soon release the photo book 'Social Club: Carat'. Find out more here !

Bonus

Did you know that S.Coups and Woozi were originally supposed to debut in the five-member boy band “Tempest”?

Around 2012/2013, Pledis Entertainment planned two boy bands to debut in quick succession: “Tempest” and “NU`EST”. The latter debuted in March 2012 and received a lot of attention, which is probably why Pledis focused more on the group. “Tempest” debut was delayed and ultimately canceled. Instead, Pledis planned “Seventeen.”