Trivia question: Who’s the biggest boy band in the world? Backstreet Boys? *NSYNC? New Kids? Hanson? Take That? Menudo? Nope. According to reliable source Guinness World Records, it’s JYJ.
Never heard of JYJ? Well, obviously you haven’t been to Korea lately, where the group’s singers, Kim Jaejoong, Park Yoochun, and Kim Junsu, are bigger than Justin Timberlake. Their popularity in their homeland landed them in Guinness in 2008 and 2009 for having the world’s largest official fanclub (more than 800,000 members in Seoul alone) and for being the most photographed celebrities on the planet (they’ve been snapped professionally approximately 500 million times).
And now JYJ are going global, as they release their first English-language album, The Beginning, on Atlantic Records. The disc features production on two tracks, “Empty” and “Be My Girl,” by superstar studio guru Rodney Jerkins (Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Mary J. Blige), and the album’s lead single, “Ayyy Girl,” actually boasts vocals and production by a little American artist named Kanye West.
