SHINee

At South Korea's major year-end awarded in 2008 and beginning-of-year awards in 2009, SHINee became the first-ever artist to achieve a "rookie grand slam", winning every Rookie of the Year award at said award ceremonies. Promo photo for [[2009, Year of Us]] On May 18, SHINee released "Juliette", the lead single from their then-upcoming second mini album. The group's second mini album, titled Romeo, was released a week later, on May 25.

SHINee's third mini album, 2009, Year of Us, was released digitally on October 19 and physically on October 25. The mini album's lead single, "Ring Ding Dong" was previously released on October 14. The music video for "Ring Ding Dong" remains SHINee's most-viewed music video, with over 189 million views on YouTube as of 2026.

Following the success of "Ring Ding Dong", in December the group began promoting "Jo Jo" as the second promotional single from their third mini album. Promo photo for "[[Lucifer"]] On July 21, 2010, SHINee released their second full-length album, Lucifer, along with its title track of the same name. The album went on the become the sixth-highest selling album in South Korea for the year with over 120,000 copies.

A repackage of Lucifer, titled Hello, was released on October 1. On December 26, the group embarked on their first-ever headlining concert tour, titled SHINee World, at Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan. The tour eventually concluded on November 24, 2011, at Osaka-jō Hall, attracting 110,000 fans in total.

Promo photo for "[[Juliette (Japanese single)|Juliette"]] SHINee's debut Japanese single, "Replay -Kimi wa Boku no Everything-" was released on June 22, 2011. Within its first-week, the single recorded more than 91,000 copies sold, thus setting a new-record at the time for the highest-selling debut by a South Korean act on the Oricon Chart. On August 28 and October 21, the group's second and third Japanese singles, "Juliette" and "Lucifer" were released, respectively.

In November 2011, SHINee were invited as the opening act of the 6th London Korean Film Festival. The group held an sold-out hour-long concert, thus becoming the first Korean act to hold an independent concert in London. The group's first Japanese studio album, The First, was released on December 1.

The album was eventually certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for selling over 100,000 copies. On December 24, a commemorative concert was held at Tokyo International Forum Hall A in honor of the album's success. As part of SM Entertainment's winter album, 2011 SMTOWN Winter 'The Warmest Gift, the group participated with a cover of Wham!

's "Last Christmas". Promo photo for "[[Sherlock"]] SHINee's fourth mini album, Sherlock, was released worldwide digitally on March 19, 2012, and physically two days later. The album's title track, "Sherlock (Clue + Note)" was a hybrid of two of the album's b-sides, "Clue" and "Note", and its music video featured Jessica Jung.

The mini album eventually became the fifth-highest selling album in South Korea for the year with over 180,000 copies. A Japanese version of the song was later released on May 19. The group emba...