Sunny Hill

Sunny Hill (Hangul: 써니힐) is a South Korean girl group. The members consist of Misung, Jubee, Seung Ah and Kota. From 2007–2011, fans of Sunny Hill were known as "Sunshines". Following their rise in popularity, fans voted and had the name officially changed to "Hiller" (stylized as HːLLЁR).

Career

2007–2009: Original line-up

Sunny Hill (Janghyun, Jubee & Seung Ah) debuted as a co-ed group on September 20, 2007, with the single album Love Letter, which later won the Excellent Newcomer Album award. Following the success of their first single album, the group released their second single album, 2008 My Summer. The group then went on a musical hiatus, and only released various OSTs.

2010–2011: Label changes, line-Up changes & rise in popularity

Following their musical hiatus, Sunny Hill unexpectedly changed labels to Nega Network, home of girl group Brown Eyed Girls. After the label change, a new member, Kota, was introduced into the group.

Sunny Hill was quickly thrown into their first project under Nega Network by featuring on Narsha's digital single "Mamma Mia". Janghyun did not vocally participate in the track, but was featured in the music video. The group quickly became known as "Narsha's Group", due to lack of popularity amongst fans of K-pop. Following promotions of "Mamma Mia", the group added their fifth and final member, Misung. The quintet released "Pit-A-Pat", for the Korean drama The Greatest Love. The song attracted much attention and charted high.

After the release of "Pit-A-Pat", Sunny Hill made another unexpected label change to LOEN Entertainment. On June 3, 2011, the group released their first extended play, Midnight Circus. The lead track, "Midnight Circus" drew much attention from its dramatic and creative music video, as well as vocally impressive live performances. On August 4, 2011, Sunny Hill released their follow-up ballad, "Pray". The music video and lyrics were praised for their "artistic beauty". The song continued the group's growing popularity and charted on the Top 10 of the Gaon Chart, despite there being no live promotions.

2012: The Grasshoppers, "Is The White Horse Coming?" & Goodbye To Romance

On January 13, 2012, Sunny Hill made their comeback with their first maxi-styled single The Grasshoppers. It was announced during promotions that Janghyun would be entering his mandatory military service at the end of the month.^[1] Various idols filled his spot during live performances of the song. The song became a hit, peaking at the Top 3 of the Gaon Chart, even though the leader, Janghyun, was not present on their performances.^[2]

On April 14, 2012, it was officially announced that Sunny Hill would be making a comeback as a four-member girl group. A teaser for their upcoming digital single, "Is The White Horse Coming?" (aka "Princess and Prince Charming"), was released the same day.^[3]

On April 19, 2012, the music video for "Is The White Horse Coming?" was released along with the digital single.^[4] The next day, it was confirmed that the song had topped the music site Soribada and had reached within the top three of several other music sites including Melon, Mnet, and Bugs,^[5], at which time Sunny Hill began promoting "Is The White Horse Coming?"

On December 6, 2012, Sunny Hill made their third comeback of the year with the sweet ballad mini-album Antique Romance, with the members saying that it was an exciting change for the charismatic girl group to become a ballad girl group that shows their warm voices. The title song, "Goodbye to Romance" features lyrics about the members' first love story. Many fans anticipated their change due to Sunny Hill debuting as a ballad group. The album was very successful and was their third hit after "Midnight Circus" and "Grasshopper Song", and both songs charted in the Top 10 songs in Gaon Chart. They made their comeback performance on Music Bank.^[6]

2013: "Love Actually", Young Folk

On April 2, their agency, LOEN Entertainment, released a teaser for an upcoming collaboration of Sunny Hill with South Korean modern rock group called DayBreak, entitled "Love Actually", a song which was later included on the project album Re:code - Episode III. Sunny Hill member Misung co-produced and co-wrote the song, writing the lyrics of the rap part, and she also announced that the song would be similar to their 2011 OST hit song, "Pit-A-Pat", from the South Korean hit drama, The Greatest Love. The music video was released the next day, and featured cameo appearances from comedian Kim Sungwon, Defconn, and ZE:A member Kwanghee. The collaboration charted high, peaking at number 7, and was their highest charting collaboration song despite performing no live promotions.

On June 10, their agency released a group teaser image for their third mini-album entitled Young Folk, with an announcement saying the song will be different from their other songs because it will feature folk music, a genre rarely used in K-pop history. The song's video teaser was released on June 14, and featured Hareem, a South Korean folk musician, famous for playing unusual instruments like bouzouki, hurdy-gurdy, and tin whistle. The same day, the group held a showcase announcing their comeback. The album was released on June 19, and charted high on real-time charts. The music video was released on June 20.

On August 13, Kota was featured in a duet with SS501's Kim Hyung-jun entitled "Always Love You", a special digital single,^[7] with a release of a video teaser on August 8.^[8] The song is an acoustic medium R&B produced by Kim Hyung Jun himself, while the music video has an innocent love story theme, filmed on Hanseo University's airfield.^[9]

On October 30, 2013, Leader Janghyun was discharged from his military service.

2014: "Don't Say Anything" and Janghyun's departure

On January 17, LOEN announced that co-ed group Sunny Hill would make their comeback with their third digital single "Don't Say Anything". On January 19, it was revealed that Janghyun would leave the group to pursue his career as a producer. Two days later, the music video teaser of "Don't Say Anything" was released,^[10] followed by the release of its single and music video on the 24th.^[11]

2014 - 2015: "Sunny Blues Part A & B"

Sunny Blues is the first studio album of the South Korean girl group Sunny Hill. It was released in two parts with Part A being released on August 21, 2014 and Part B released on January 29, 2015. It was released 7 years after their debut.

Members

Current members of Sunny Hill are Lee Mi-sung (이미성), Jubi (Kim Eun-young 김은영), Lee Seung-ah (이승아), and Kota (Ahn Jin-ah 안진아). Kim Jang-hyun (김장현) is a former member.

Member timeline

Discography

• 2014: Sunny Blues

Awards

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sunny Hill.

• Sunny Hill on LOEN Entertainment

References