By For all those who follow the Wonder Girls, their line up is about to have a change:
South Korea’s top female pop group the Wonder Girls will soon have a new line-up, their agent announced Saturday, after taking the US pop charts by storm.
Sunmi, 18, will leave the five-member group when they wrap up their year-long tour of the United States in February, JYP Entertainment said.
According to the Billboard website (www.billboard.biz), “Nobody” topped the year-end Hot Singles Sales chart in 2009, beating stars such as Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga and Beyonce.
“Nobody” also ranked 76th in the Billboard Hot 100 in late October, a first for any Asian group, JYP Entertainment said.
Sunmi, who dropped out of school to join the Wonder Girls, will return to her education in March.
“It was such a valuable and happy experience for me to take part in the performance tour to 50 cities in the United States for the past year. But I came to wonder whether I should live like this,” Sunmi said in a statement.
Sunmi will be replaced by Hye Lim, 18, who has been groomed by the group’s agent for the past three years with a view to appealing to Chinese fans. She is fluent in English, Cantonese and Mandarin,
Debuting in early 2007, the group scored three consecutive number one hit singles with “Tell Me,” “So Hot” and “Nobody.”
The Wonder Girls, also including Sohee, Sunye, Ye-eun and Yubin, plan to launch their first English album in February. [AFP]
Sunmi actually took a leave of absence last year from the group during their US tour to travel back to Korea for some reason. Whatever is going on she has decided to leave the group permanently.
1:50 am on January 23rd, 2010 1
I bet she was pregnant and took the 1 year of absence…
4:29 am on January 23rd, 2010 2
I've heard some fans state this may be the end of the Wonder Girls' move into the US market as Sunmi is the best English speaker in the group. Don't know about that. Some of the others speak passable English too.
Hinoi Team should take advantage of the chaos and bring J-Pop to the American masses!
8:58 am on January 23rd, 2010 3
this is true but she is not leaving permantly. she is taking a temporary absence. besides she isn't pregnant. she will be back. if you want the official announcment then go to their website http://www.wondergirlsworld.com
9:16 am on January 23rd, 2010 4
About Hinoi Team not sure the US will go for a Eurobeat sound in J-Pop packaging. Back to the drawing board…
9:41 am on January 23rd, 2010 5
Right, so they are going to put a new girl in the group and then pull her out at the whim of the first one? I'd bet the official announcement is damage control.
10:13 am on January 23rd, 2010 6
First, I want to flatly state t1hat I believe everyt1hing I read in Korean newspapers.
Everyone in USA eats kimchi every day 
and Wonder Girls are biggest musical group in USA ever. EVER! 
Korea Times told me so.
11:17 am on January 23rd, 2010 7
I hope she's not the one with all the talent.
1:03 pm on January 23rd, 2010 8
If it's the girl in the picture…She isn't the one who's totally tone deaf.
1:13 pm on January 23rd, 2010 9
Can someone show me where they got the info that the Wondergirls topped the hot singles sales chart? I went through the 2009 year end charts and couldn't find them anywhere.
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/charts/yearendchar…
2:22 pm on January 23rd, 2010 10
i hope she will comeback soon
3:40 pm on January 23rd, 2010 11
They suck anyways
3:50 pm on January 23rd, 2010 12
At #7, see link to PopSeoul article posting of 6 Jan and in the comments there is some discussion of this chartology stuff for the music scene that may answer your question.
http://popseoul.com/2010/01/06/wondergirls-top-bi…
7:26 pm on January 23rd, 2010 13
They have 3 songs??
11:25 pm on January 23rd, 2010 14
I was just kidding about that
!
11:29 pm on January 23rd, 2010 15
No, that's 3 hit singles. They have more in their repertoire than that. By the way, I think that is 3 hits on Korean charts tracking that stuff. The only one which got traction in the US was "Nobody" which got into the 70s of the US Top 100.
8:48 am on January 24th, 2010 16
I certainly can't imagine any American star taking a break from their careers to pursue education. No wonder we're going down the drain…
9:02 am on January 24th, 2010 17
"Talent"?
9:12 am on January 24th, 2010 18
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/charts/yearendchar…
9:25 am on January 24th, 2010 19
Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but there's Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, and Danica McKellar (Winnie from the Wonder Years).
9:30 am on January 24th, 2010 20
I am devastated over this news. The Wonder Girls are truly in the vanguard of up and coming Korean artisans which will lead to Korea dominating the world entertainment scene in the very near future. One can only imagine the heights to which the WG's could rise with their near limitless depth of talent. With their lyrical compositions they already stand with the giants; Dylan, Lennon, Morrison and even Irving Berlin. As far as the music itself, holy crap. These aren't just little pop ditties we are talking about. We are in the neighborhood of Chopin and Bach.
When it comes to singing and dancing they leave almost everyone who has ever performed on stage in the dust. Sinatra and Bing are hacks compared to these super sirens. With their disciplines lithe movements they trounce the likes of Suzanne Farrell and Anna Pavlova. I'm sure the understudy will be a suitable replacement while Sunmi finishes her Phd in astrophysics. After all, Korea has a vast and deep pool of nearly limitless talent and creativity.
4:09 pm on January 24th, 2010 21
Thanks for the link. From the comments on the site, found this paragraph taken from the Billboard biz site which explains why I couldn't find the Wondergirls on the year end charts:
“The Hot 100 Singles Sales (also known as Singles Sales) is a chart released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States. It measures sales of commercial singles and is one of three component charts, along with the Hot 100 Airplay and the Hot Digital Songs, that determine the chart positions of singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. With the decline in sales of physical singles in the US, songs that become number one on this chart often do not even chart on the Hot 100.”
So basically, they were number one on a meaningless chart, and nowhere to be found in the top 100 on the ones that matter.
But to their credit, the Wondergirls have flopped the least in comparison with Rain, Se7en, and BoA, and I'm sure they got much more money out of the pockets of Korean Americans than they would have otherwise, so it's all good.
10:20 pm on January 24th, 2010 22
"So basically, they were number one on a meaningless chart, and nowhere to be found in the top 100 on the ones that matter. "
What's next, you're going to tell us that Rain didn't perform on the main stage at the Madison Square Garden, but one of its smaller venues?
10:10 am on January 25th, 2010 23
Rain did perform at Madison Square Garden…to thousands of Korean Americans (though there was one confirmed white girl in the audience).
If your measure of success is how many Korean Americans hearts and minds are won over by these Korean 'world stars' entering the American market, then mission accomplished.
11:14 am on January 25th, 2010 24
Not on the main stage, he didn't. It was one of its smaller venues…Check it out.
8:53 am on February 7th, 2010 25
[...] The Wonder Girls are running into some snags in their American debut. First, Sun-mi (a.k.a. Mimi) left the group to continue her university studies, beginning in March. (The Wonder Girls have already had their [...]
9:00 pm on April 6th, 2010 26
I hope sun mi will come back to Wondergirls because i want to hear the new song of Wondergirls
9:01 pm on April 6th, 2010 27
also,i want to see Wondergirls destroy girl's generation
10:58 am on April 24th, 2010 28
I hope she comes back soon. Website
The wonder girls will be waiting for you.
Bye
1:47 pm on September 28th, 2010 29
Hello, my fan's. Once i felt soomething about eaving the gruop.. i will not because wat else am i going to to its either stay or leave this is my choice please commet and vote for me.