With GOT7 making a lot of waves in the media for leaving JYP Entertainment, reuniting for a comeback, and fighting the legal battles to finally win ownership over their own music, there’s been a lot of attention surrounding their former agency and their treatment of their own idols. As more second generation idols return to the scene and third generation idols make waves in the idol system, it’s interesting to look back and compare the careers of older idols.

Today we’re discussing 2PM, one of the pinnacle groups of the second generation that joined the comeback surge back in 2021. The JYP group was formed in 2008 by a documentary known as Hot Blood Men, which was created to form the group One Day. One Day was later split up into 2AM and 2PM, four members ballad focused and seven members hip-hop focused. While 2PM is a six member group today (Taecyeon, Jun.K, Nickhun, Wooyoung, Junho, Chansung), they debuted as seven, with group leader Jaebom (now known as the notorious Jay Park) finishing at the top spot. While One Day was originally supposed to be a twelve member full group, the drop out of a trainee reduced the group to eleven and then they were eventually split into two. 2PM officially debuted in August 2008 with the single “10 out of 10.”

The group made their first comeback in April 2009 with second mini-album 2:00PM Time For Change and lead single “Again and Again.” This comeback gained the group their number one placement on music charts, including MelOn, Hanteo, and Mnet. The next comeback in June, “I Hate You," gave the group their first music show win on M!COUNTDOWN and later another win on Music Bank. But the year of 2009 was mainly focused on the scandal that came, which many are familiar with even if not super familiar with 2PM themselves. Posts from Jay Park’s MySpace in 2005 (yes, that’s how far back we’re going) surfaced, where he expressed his dislike for Korea while a trainee. Many believe these posts were taken out of context and blown up by the Korean media, but despite that he issued an apology and ended up leaving the group. JYP reportedly did not kick Jay out of the group, but he instead decided on his own to return to the U.S. while the situation calmed. As the group continued with six members and released their first studio album, there were questions about Jay’s status, with JYP stating he would be welcome back into the group if he so chose. The members did show their support for Jay as well, splitting their income equally with him on the first album. “Heartbeat” was released without Jay in the imagery or music video.

The group went on to perform at the Mnet Asian Music Awards and took home prizes for “Best Male Group” and “Artist of the Year.” As they continued to promote through the end of 2009, the group would keep Jay’s position in the choreography and continually pay homage to him. It wasn’t until the beginning of 2010 that JYP announced that he would not be returning to the group and that his contract had been terminated with the agreement of the remaining members. It caused quite a stir at the time, but twelve years later it’s interesting to look back and see what that decision ultimately ended up putting into motion. Even so, as the group marched on as six members, they still saw commercial success with the April release Don’t Stop Can’t Stop. In that same month, they served as the opening act for Wonder Girls’s U.S. shows.

The group had their first arena tours in the summer of 2010 before releasing their fourth mini-album Still 2:00PM and lead single “I’ll Be Back,” which marked the group’s first charting on the Billboard World Albums Chart. For the beginning of 2011, they would focus promotion on Japan before announcing their second studio album Hands Up in June.

2PM’s venture into the Japanese market proved fruitful, with their 2011 annual sales beating out even the behemoth SHINee in the foreign market. During their focus on the Japanese market in 2012, the group released a number of compilation albums in Korea. They would continue to tour Asia and find continued success in both Japan and Korea. Rolling into 2013, they would push the envelope in what Korea would tolerate in terms of their mature concepts with their third studio album Grown. While the title of this album was “Comeback When You Hear This Song,” the one that left the biggest impression on K-Pop fans was the second title track “A.D.T.O.Y.” This track would later be recognized by Billboard and rank at No. 13 in “20 Best K-Pop Songs of 2013: K-Town Picks.”

Riding their wave of success, the group wouldn’t have a full Korean comeback until 2014, more than a year after the last release. Fourth studio album Go Crazy! was released in September, peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard World Albums Chart. The group then embarked on a world tour, hitting 12 cities across the globe, including locations in China, the U.S., Thailand, and Indonesia. This would mark the group’s first return to the U.S. after supporting Wonder Girls and make them one of the pioneer groups into the U.S. market in early days of K-Pop popularity in the states.

While creeping closer to their military enlistment, comebacks from 2PM became more and more scarce. Still, they gifted fans with full studio albums with every return. The fifth studio album No. 5 was released in June 2015 with lead title “My House,” written by Jun.K. While the song did well commercially, it wasn’t the most popular release from the group, yet somehow ended up gaining a major resurgence in 2020. This also led to the group performing the song six years later with their latest comeback.

2016 marked their last release as a group before mandatory military enlistment. Sixth studio album Gentlemen’s Game was released on September 13 and peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard World Albums Chart. The members would take on individual schedules between military enlistments, with many choosing to act and others releasing music. Taecyeon, Chansung, Junho, and Nickhun were seen acting during this period.

2PM was then on hiatus from 2016 to 2021, and during that time, five of the six members renewed their contracts with JYP. Taecyeon was the only member to not re-sign with the agency, but he would continue to participate in any 2PM activities despite leaving. With Junho being the last to complete military service in March 2021, it was announced the group would have a full comeback at the end of June, the first in five years.

Though this was the last group comeback as of late, 2PM members have been very active in the industry and have proven their staying power in the game since their debut. Despite an early scandal derailing their original plans, they remain one of the most successful and stable groups to date. There’s no denying 2PM had a huge impact on the growth of K-Pop, and even if they aren’t as well-known in this day and age, they remain a behemoth of the second generation K-Pop surge.