Ive (Korean: 아이브; stylized as IVE) is a South Korean girl group formed by Starship Entertainment. The group is composed of six members: Yujin, Gaeul, Rei, Wonyoung, Liz and Leeseo. They made their debut on December 1, 2021 with the single album Eleven.
The group was dubbed as "Global Super Rookie" and has solidified their position as "4th Generation Representative Girl Group" due to their continuous presence in local and domestic charts.
The group's name, Ive, is a contraction for "I have". It alludes to the idea of confidently showing what "I have" to the audience. Instead of telling the story of a growing girl group, Ive will try to portray a "complete girl group" from the start.
Career
2018–2021: Pre-debut activities
Yujin and Wonyoung participated in the reality competition series Produce 48 in 2018, where they finished in fifth and first place, respectively, becoming members of the project girl group Iz*One. They promoted with the group until its disbandment on April 29, 2021.
2021–present: Introduction, debut with Eleven, and Love Dive
On November 2, 2021, Starship Entertainment announced that they would be debuting a new girl group, their first since WJSN in 2016. The members were revealed from November 3 to 8 (in order: Yujin, Gaeul, Wonyoung, Liz, Rei, and Leeseo). On November 8, Starship confirmed that the group would debut on December 1, followed two days later by the announcement of the title of the group's first single album as Eleven. On December 1, the group released their debut single album, Eleven, led by the single of the same name. The group made their broadcast debut on KBS2's Music Bank on December 3, performing "Eleven".
On the Billboard charts dated the week of December 14, 2021, "Eleven" ranked at number nine on the World Digital Song Sales chart and charted on the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. US charts for fourteen consecutive weeks. The song also topped Billboard's Hot Trending Songs chart, debuting atop the Top User Generated Songs chart of Billboard Japan, and entered the Japan Hot 100 chart. Meanwhile, Ive charted on the Billboard Artist 100 for the first time.
On December 8, 2021, exactly one week after their debut, Ive earned their first music show win on MBC's Show Champion, making them the fastest girl group to win first place since debut. "Eleven" went on to win on music shows 13 times, including a triple crown on KBS2's Music Bank, MBC's Music Core, and SBS Inkigayo. In addition, Eleven recorded the most album sales in its first week of release for girl group debut albums. On December 27, "Eleven" rose to fourth place on Spotify's Global Viral Top 50 and peaked at number 95 on its Global Top 200 chart; on the South Korean regional charts, the song topped both the Viral Top 50 and Top 200 charts. The song was also the most streamed song on YouTube in South Korea for five weeks, spending 12 consecutive weeks inside top three, and the group was named the top cover artist on music streaming platform Tidal's K-pop Hits playlist. The music video for "Eleven" surpassed 100 million views on March 8, 2022.
On April 5, 2022, Ive released their second single album, Love Dive, led by the single of the same name. One week after release, the song went viral and reached 200M views for its TikTok challenge. The single also drew 28.9 million streams and sold 2,800 outside the U.S. in it's first full tracking week. On the Billboard Charts dated week of April 23, 2022, "Love Dive" vaults to number ten on the Global Excl. US charts, becoming the group's first song to reach the upper tier. According to Hanteo Chart, the album has risen to the top ten all-time list of the highest girl group weekly album sales.
Reception
In January 2022, Ive was selected as the most anticipated K-pop artist of the year by 31 of the most popular music agency experts from different entertainment companies.
